IIIKIUT 

LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  Of 
CALIFOKNIA 


VIRGINIA 


By 
ELLEN   GLASGOW 


GARDEN  CITY  NEW  YORK 

DOUBLEDAY,    PAGE    &   COMPANY 


M  C  M  X  I  I  I 


XL  9 
16299 


Copyright,  1913,  % 

DOUBLEDAY,   PAGE   &   COMPANY 

All  rights  reserved,  including  that  of 

translation  into  Foreign  Languages, 

including  the  Scandinavian. 


Ls<f  V 


TO 

THE    RADIANT    SPIRIT 
WHO    WAS 

MY 

SISTER 

CARY  GLASGOW 
MC  CORMACK 


5079 


CHAPTER 
I. 

II. 
III. 

CONTENTS 
BOOK  FIRST  —  THE  DREAM 

The  System  
Her  Inheritance  
First  Love     ....... 

PAGE 

3 
26 
51 

IV. 

The  Treadwells    .        .     .  , 

73 

V. 

Oliver,  the  Romantic.        .               . 

98 

VI. 

A  Tread  well  in  Revolt      .        .       . 

116 

VII. 

The  Artist  in  Philistia       .... 

130 

VIII. 

White  Magic        .       «       .        •     >;  »       . 

145 

IX. 

The  Great  Man  Moves     .... 

163 

X. 

Oliver  Surrenders        

176 

BOOK  SECOND  —  THE  REALITY 

I. 

Virginia  Prepares  for  the  Future 

195 

II. 

Virginia's  Letters         

211 

III. 

The  Return  

237 

IV. 

Her  Children  

258 

V. 

Failure   

280 

VI. 

The  Shadow  

296 

VII. 

The  Will  to  Live        

315 

VIII. 

The  Pang  of  Motherhood. 

330 

IX. 

The  Problem  of  the  South 

361 

vii 

CONTENTS 
BOOK  THIRD  — THE  ADJUSTMENT 

CHAPTER  PACK 

I.  The  Changing  Order  .        .        .      , .        .385 

II.  The  Price  of  Comfort        .       .       .       .410 

III.  Middle-age 426 

IV.  Life's  Cruelties 456 

V.  Bitterness 476 

VI.     The  Future  497 


BOOK  FIRST 

THE  DREAM 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    SYSTEM 

TOWARD  the  close  of  a  May  afternoon  in  the  year 
1884,  Miss  Priscilla  Batte,  having  learned  by  heart 
the  lesson  in  physical  geography  she  would  teach  her 
senior  class  on  the  morrow,  stood  feeding  her  canary 
on  the  little  square  porch  of  the  Dinwiddie  Academy 
for  Young  Ladies.  The  day  had  been  hot,  and  the 
fitful  wind,  which  had  risen  in  the  direction  of  the 
river,  was  just  beginning  to  blow  in  soft  gusts  under 
the  old  mulberry  trees  in  the  street,  and  to  scatter  the 
loosened  petals  of  syringa  blossoms  in  a  flowery  snow 
over  the  grass.  For  a  moment  Miss  Priscilla  turned 
her  flushed  face  to  the  scented  air,  while  her  eyes  rested 
lovingly  on  the  narrow  walk,  edged  with  pointed 
bricks  and  bordered  by  cowslips  and  wallflowers, 
which  led  through  the  short  garden  to  the  three  stone 
steps  and  the  tall  iron  gate.  She  was  a  shapeless  yet 
majestic  woman  of  some  fifty  years,  with  a  large 
mottled  face  in  which  a  steadfast  expression  of  gentle 
obstinacy  appeared  to  underly  the  more  evanescent 
ripples  of  thought  or  of  emotion.  Her  severe  black 
silk  gown,  to  which  she  had  just  changed  from  her 
morning  dress  of  alpaca,  was  softened  under  her  full 
double  chin  by  a  knot  of  lace  and  a  cameo  brooch 
bearing  the  helmeted  profile  of  Pallas  Athene.  On 
her  head  she  wore  a  three-cornered  cap  trimmed  with 


4  VIRGINIA 

a  niching  of  organdie,  and  beneath  it  her  thin  gray 
hair  still  showed  a  gleam  of  faded  yellow  in  the  sun 
light.  She  had  never  been  handsome,  but  her  pro 
digious  size  had  endowed  her  with  an  impressiveness 
which  had  passed  in  her  youth,  and  among  an  indulgent 
people,  for  beauty.  Only  in  the  last  few  years  had 
her  fleshiness,  due  to  rich  food  which  she  could  not 
resist  and  to  lack  of  exercise  for  which  she  had  an 
instinctive  aversion,  begun  seriously  to  inconvenience 
her. 

Beyond  the  wire  cage,  in  which  the  canary  spent 
his  involuntarily  celibate  life,  an  ancient  microphylla 
rose-bush,  with  a  single  imperfect  bud  blooming  ahead 
of  summer  amid  its  glossy  foliage,  clambered  over 
a  green  lattice  to  the  gabled  pediment  of  the  porch, 
while  the  delicate  shadows  of  the  leaves  rippled  like 
lace-work  on  the  gravel  below.  In  the  miniature 
garden,  where  the  small  spring  blossoms  strayed  from 
the  prim  beds  into  the  long  feathery  grasses,  there 
were  syringa  bushes,  a  little  overblown;  crape-myrtles 
not  yet  in  bud;  a  holly  tree  veiled  in  bright  green 
near  the  iron  fence;  a  flowering  almond  shrub  in  late 
bloom  against  the  shaded  side  of  the  house;  and  where 
a  west  wing  put  out  on  the  left,  a  bower  of  red  and 
white  roses  was  steeped  now  in  the  faint  sunshine. 
At  the  foot  of  the  three  steps  ran  the  sunken  moss-edged 
bricks  of  High  Street,  and  across  High  Street  there 
floated,  like  wind-blown  flowers,  the  figures  of  Susan 
Tread  well  and  Virginia  Pendleton. 

Opening  the  rusty  gate,  the  two  girls  tripped  with 
carefully  held  flounces  up  the  stone  steps  and  between 
the  cowslips  and  wallflowers  that  bordered  the  walk. 
Their  white  lawn  dresses  were  made  with  the  close- 


THE  SYSTEM  5 

fitting  sleeves  and  the  narrow  waists  of  the  period, 
and  their  elaborately  draped  overskirts  were  looped 
on  the  left  with  graduated  bows  of  light  blue  ottoman 
ribbon.  They  wore  no  hats,  and  Virginia,  who  was 
the  shorter  of  the  two,  had  fastened  a  Jacqueminot 
rose  in  the  thick  dark  braid  which  was  wound  in 
a  wreath  about  her  head.  Above  her  arched  black 
eyebrows,  which  lent  an  expression  of  surprise  and 
animation  to  her  vivid  oval  face,  her  hair  was  parted, 
after  an  earlier  fashion,  under  its  plaited  crown,  and 
allowed  to  break  in  a  mist  of  little  curls  over  her 
temples.  Even  in  repose  there  was  a  joyousness  in 
her  look  which  seemed  less  the  effect  of  an  inward 
gaiety  of  mind  than  of  some  happy  outward  accident 
of  form  and  colour.  Her  eyes,  very  far  apart  and 
set  in  black  lashes,  were  of  a  deep  soft  blue  —  the 
blue  of  wild  hyacinths  after  rain.  By  her  eyes, 
and  by  an  old-world  charm  of  personality  which  she 
exhaled  like  a  perfume,  it  was  easy  to  discern  that 
she  embodied  the  feminine  ideal  of  the  ages.  To 
look  at  her  was  to  think  inevitably  of  love.  For  that 
end,  obedient  to  the  powers  of  Life,  the  centuries  had 
formed  and  coloured  her,  as  they  had  formed  and 
coloured  the  wild  rose  with  its  whorl  of  delicate  petals. 
The  air  of  a  spoiled  beauty  which  rested  not  ungrace 
fully  upon  her  was  sweetened  by  her  expression  of 
natural  simplicity  and  goodness. 

For  an  instant  she  stood  listening  in  silence  to  the 
querulous  pipes  of  the  bird  and  the  earnest  exhortations 
of  the  teacher  on  the  joys  of  cage  life  for  both  bird  and 
lady.  Then  plucking  the  solitary  early  bud  from  the  mi- 
crophylla  rose-bush,  she  tossed  it  over  the  railing  of  the 
porch  on  the  large  and  placid  bosom  of  Miss  Priscilla. 


6  VIRGINIA 

"Do  leave  Dicky  alone  for  a  minute!"  she  called 
in  a  winning  soprano  voice. 

At  the  sound,  Miss  Priscilla  dropped  the  bit  of 
cake  she  held,  and  turned  to  lean  delightedly  over 
the  walk,  while  her  face  beamed  like  a  beneficent 
moon  through  the  shining  cloud  of  rose-leaves. 

"Why,  Jinny,  I  hadn't  any  idea  that  you  and 
Susan  were  there!" 

Her  smile  included  Virginia's  companion,  a  tall, 
rather  heavy  girl,  with  intelligent  grey  eyes  and  fair 
hair  cut  in  a  straight  fringe  across  her  forehead.  She 
was  the  daughter  of  Cyrus  Treadwell,  the  wealthiest 
and  therefore  the  most  prominent  citizen  of  the  town, 
and  she  was  also  as  intellectual  as  the  early  eighties  and 
the  twenty-one  thousand  inhabitants  of  Dinwiddie  per 
mitted  a  woman  to  be.  Her  friendship  for  Virginia 
had  been  one  of  those  swift  and  absorbing  emotions 
which  come  to  women  in  their  school-days.  The 
stronger  of  the  two,  she  dominated  the  other,  as 
she  dominated  every  person  or  situation  in  life,  not 
by  charm,  but  by  the  force  of  an  energetic  and  capable 
mind.  Though  her  dress  matched  Virginia's  in  every 
detail,  from  the  soft  folds  of  tulle  at  the  neck  to  the 
fancy  striped  stockings  under  the  bouffant  draperies, 
the  different  shapes  of  the  wearers  gave  to  the  one 
gown  an  air  of  decorous  composure  and  to  the  other 
a  quaint  and  appealing  grace.  Flushed,  ardent, 
expectant,  both  girls  stood  now  at  the  beginning 
of  womanhood.  Life  was  theirs;  it  belonged  to 
them,  this  veiled,  radiant  thing  that  was  approaching. 
Nothing  wonderful  had  come  as  yet  —  but  to-mor 
row,  the  day  after,  or  next  year,  the  miracle  would 
happen,  and  everything  would  be  different!  Experi- 


THE  SYSTEM  7 

ence  floated  in  a  luminous  mystery  before  them,  The 
unknown,  which  had  borrowed  the  sweetness  and  the 
colour  of  their  illusions,  possessed  them  like  a  secret 
ecstasy  and  shone,  in  spite  of  their  shyness,  in  their 
startled  and  joyous  look. 

"Father  asked  me  to  take  a  message  over  to  General 
Goode,"  explained  Virginia,  with  a  little  laugh  as 
gay  as  the  song  of  a  bird,  "but  I  couldn't  go  by  without 
thanking  you  for  the  cherry  bounce.  I  made  mother 
drink  some  of  it  before  dinner,  and  it  almost  gave  her 
an  appetite." 

"I  knew  it  was  what  she  needed,"  answered  Miss 
Priscilla,  showing  her  pleasure  by  an  increasing  beam. 
"It  was  made  right  here  in  the  house,  and  there's 
nothing  better  in  the  world,  my  poor  mother  used 
to  say,  to  keep  you  from  running  down  in  the  spring. 
But  why  can't  you  and  Susan  come  in  and  sit  a  while?" 

"We'll  be  straight  back  in  a  minute,"  replied  Susan 
before  Virginia  could  answer.  "I've  got  a  piece  of 
news  I  want  to  tell  you  before  any  one  else  does. 
Oliver  came  home  last  night." 

"Oliver?"  repeated  Miss  Priscilla,  a  little  per 
plexed.  "You  don't  mean  the  son  of  your  uncle 
Henry,  who  went  out  to  Australia?  I  thought  your 
father  had  washed  his  hands  of  him  because  he  had 
started  play-acting  or  something?"  Curiosity,  that 
devouring  passion  of  the  middle-aged,  worked  in 
her  breast,  and  her  placid  face  grew  almost  intense 
in  expression. 

"Yes,  that's  the  one,"  replied  Susan.  "They  went 
to  Australia  when  Oliver  was  ten  years  old,  and  he's 
now  twenty-two.  He  lost  both  his  parents  about  three 
years  ago,"  she  added. 


8  VIRGINIA 

"I  know.  His  mother  was  my  cousin,"  returned 
Miss  Priscilla.  "I  lost  sight  of  her  after  she  left 
Dinwiddie,  but  somebody  was  telling  me  the  other 
day  that  Henry's  investments  all  turned  out  badly 
and  they  came  down  to  real  poverty.  Sarah  Jane 
was  a  pretty  girl  and  I  was  always  very  fond  of  her, 
but  she  was  one  of  the  improvident  sort  that  couldn't 
make  two  ends  meet  without  tying  them  into  a  bow- 
knot." 

"Then  Oliver  must  be  just  like  her.  After  his 
mother's  death  he  went  to  Germany  to  study,  and 
he  gave  away  the  little  money  he  had  to  some  student 
he  found  starving  there  in  a  garret." 

"That  was  generous,"  commented  Miss  Priscilla 
thoughtfully,  "but  I  should  hardly  call  it  sensible. 
I  hope  some  day,  Jinny,  that  your  father  will  tell  us  in 
a  sermon  whether  there  is  biblical  sanction  for  immoder 
ate  generosity  or  not." 

"But  what  does  he  say?"  asked  Virginia  softly, 
meaning  not  the  rector,  but  the  immoderate  young 
man. 

"Oh,  Oliver  says  that  there  wasn't  enough  for  both 
and  that  the  other  student  is  worth  more  to  the  world 
than  he  is,"  answered  Susan.  "Then,  of  course, 
when  he  got  so  poor  that  he  had  to  pawn  his  clothes 
or  starve,  he  wrote  father  an  almost  condescending 
letter  and  said  that  as  much  as  he  hated  business, 
he  supposed  he'd  have  to  come  back  and  go  to  work. 
'Only,'  he  added,  'for  God's  sake,  don't  make  it 
tobacco ! '  Wasn't  that  dreadful  ?  " 

"It  was  extremely  impertinent,"  replied  Miss 
Priscilla  sternly,  "and  to  Cyrus  of  all  persons!  I  am 
surprised  that  he  allowed  him  to  come  into  the  house." 


THE  SYSTEM  9 

"Oh,  father  doesn't  take  any  of  his  talk  seriously. 
He  calls  it  'starvation  foolishness,'  and  says  that 
Oliver  will  get  over  it  as  soon  as  he  has  a  nice  little 
bank  account.  Perhaps  he  will  —  he  is  only  twenty- 
two,  you  know  —  but  just  now  his  head  is  full  of  all 
kinds  of  new  ideas  he  picked  up  somewhere  abroad. 
He's  as  clever  as  he  can  be,  there's  no  doubt  of  that, 
and  he'd  be  really  good-looking,  too,  if  he  didn't  have 
the  crooked  nose  of  the  Tread  wells.  Virginia  has 
seen  him  only  once  in  the  street,  but  she's  more  than 
half  in  love  with  him  already." 

"Do  come,  Susan!"  remonstrated  Virginia,  blushing 
as  red  as  the  rose  in  her  hair.  "It's  past  six  o'clock 
and  the  General  will  have  gone  if  we  don't  hurry." 
And  turning  away  from  the  porch,  she  ran  between  the 
flowering  syringa  bushes  down  the  path  to  the  gate. 

Having  lost  his  bit  of  cake,  the  bird  began  to  pipe 
shrilly,  while  Miss  Priscilla  drew  a  straight  wicker 
chair  (she  never  used  rockers)  beside  the  cage,  and, 
stretching  out  her  feet  in  their  large  cloth  shoes  with 
elastic  sides,  counted  the  stitches  in  an  afghan  she 
was  knitting  in  narrow  blue  and  orange  strips.  In 
front  of  her,  the  street  trailed  between  cool,  dim  houses 
which  were  filled  with  quiet,  and  from  the  hall  at 
her  back  there  came  a  whispering  sound  as  the  breeze 
moved  like  a  ghostly  footstep  through  an  alcove 
window.  With  that  strange  power  of  reflecting  the 
variable  moods  of  humanity  which  one  sometimes 
finds  in  inanimate  objects,  the  face  of  the  old  house 
had  borrowed  from  the  face  of  its  mistress  the  look 
of  cheerful  fortitude  with  which  her  generation  had 
survived  the  agony  of  defeat  and  the  humiliation  of 
reconstruction.  After  nineteen  years,  the  Academy 


10  VIRGINIA 

still  bore  the  scars  of  war  on  its  battered  front.  Once 
it  had  watched  the  spectre  of  famine  stalk  over  the 
grass-grown  pavement,  and  had  heard  the  rattle  of 
musketry  and  the  roar  of  cannon  borne  on  the  southern 
breeze  that  now  wafted  the  sounds  of  the  saw  and 
the  hammer  from  an  adjacent  street.  Once  it  had 
seen  the  flight  of  refugees,  the  overflow  of  the  wounded 
from  hospitals  and  churches,  the  panic  of  liberated 
slaves,  the  steady  conquering  march  of  the  army  of 
invasion.  And  though  it  would  never  have  occurred 
to  Miss  Priscilla  that  either  she  or  her  house  had  borne 
any  relation  to  history  (which  she  regarded  strictly 
as  a  branch  of  study  and  visualized  as  a  list  of  dates 
or  as  a  king  wearing  his  crown),  she  had,  in  fact, 
played  a  modest  yet  effective  part  in  the  rapidly 
changing  civilization  of  her  age.  But  events  were  pow 
erless  against  the  genial  heroism  in  which  she  was 
armoured,  and  it  was  characteristic  of  her,  as  well 
as  of  her  race,  that,  while  she  sat  now  in  the  midst 
of  encircling  battlefields,  with  her  eyes  on  the  walk 
over  which  she  had  seen  the  blood  of  the  wounded 
drip  when  they  were  lifted  into  her  door,  she  should  be 
brooding  not  over  the  tremendous  tragedies  through 
which  she  had  passed,  but  over  the  lesson  in  physical 
geography  she  must  teach  in  the  morning.  Her  lips 
moved  gently,  and  a  listener,  had  there  been  one,  might 
have  heard  her  murmur:  "The  four  great  alluvial 
plains  of  Asia  —  those  of  China  and  of  the  Amoo 
Daria  in  temperate  regions;  of  the  Euphrates  and 
Tigris  in  the  warm  temperate;  of  the  Indus  and  Ganges 
under  the  Tropic  —  with  the  Nile  valley  in  Africa, 
were  the  theatres  of  the  most  ancient  civilizations 
known  to  history  or  tradition " 


THE  SYSTEM  11 

As  she  ended,  a  sigh  escaped  her,  for  the  instruction 
of  the  young  was  for  her  a  matter  not  of  choice,  but  of 
necessity.  With  the  majority  of  maiden  ladies  left 
destitute  in  Dinwiddie  after  the  war,  she  had  turned 
naturally  to  teaching  as  the  only  nice  and  respectable 
occupation  which  required  neither  preparation  of  mind 
nor  considerable  outlay  of  money.  The  fact  that  she 
was  the  single  surviving  child  of  a  gallant  Confederate 
general,  who,  having  distinguished  himself  and  his 
descendants,  fell  at  last  in  the  Battle  of  Gettysburg, 
was  sufficient  recommendation  of  her  abilities  in  the 
eyes  of  her  fellow  citizens.  Had  she  chosen  to  paint 
portraits  or  to  write  poems,  they  would  have  rallied 
quite  as  loyally  to  her  support.  Few,  indeed,  were 
the  girls  born  in  Dinwiddie  since  the  war  who  had 
not  learned  reading*  penmanship  ("up  to  the  right, 
down  to  the  left,  my  dear"),  geography,  history, 
arithmetic,  deportment,  and  the  fine  arts,  in  the 
Academy  for  Young  Ladies.  The  brilliant  military 
record  of  the  General  still  shed  a  legendary  lustre 
upon  the  school,  and  it  was  earnestly  believed  that 
no  girl,  after  leaving  there  with  a  diploma  for  good 
conduct,  could  possibly  go  wrong  or  become  eccentric 
in  her  later  years.  To  be  sure,  she  might  remain  a 
trifle  weak  in  her  spelling  (Miss  Priscilla  having,  as 
she  confessed,  a  poor  head  for  that  branch  of  study), 
but,  after  all,  as  the  rector  had  once  remarked,  good 
spelling  was  by  no  means  a  necessary  accomplishment 
for  a  lady;  and,  for  the  rest,  it  was  certain  that  the 
moral  education  of  a  pupil  of  the  Academy  would 
be  firmly  rooted  in  such  fundamental  verities  as  the 
superiority  of  man  and  the  aristocratic  supremacy  of 
the  Episcopal  Church.  From  charming  Sally  Goode, 


12  VIRGINIA 

now  married  to  Tom  Peachey,  known  familiarly  as 
"honest  Tom,"  the  editor  of  the  Dinwiddie  Bee, 
to  lovely  Virginia  Pendleton,  the  mark  of  Miss  Priscilla 
was  ineffaceably  impressed  upon  the  daughters  of  the 
leading  families. 

Remembering  this  now,  as  she  was  disposed  to  do 
whenever  she  was  knitting  without  company,  Miss 
Priscilla  dropped  her  long  wooden  needles  in  her  lap, 
and  leaning  forward  in  her  chair,  gazed  out  upon  the 
town  with  an  expression  of  child-like  confidence,  of 
touching  innocence.  This  innocence,  which  belonged 
to  the  very  essence  of  her  soul,  had  survived  both  the 
fugitive  joys  and  the  brutal  disillusionments  of  life. 
Experience  could  not  shatter  it,  for  it  was  the  product 
of  a  courage  that  feared  nothing  except  opinions. 
Just  as  the  town  had  battled  for  a  principle  without 
understanding  it,  so  she  was  capable  of  dying  for  an 
idea,  but  not  of  conceiving  one.  She  had  suffered 
everything  from  the  war  except  the  necessity  of 
thinking  independently  about  it,  and,  though  in  later 
years  memory  had  become  so  sacred  to  her  that  she 
rarely  indulged  in  it,  she  still  clung  passionately  to 
the  habits  of  her  ancestors  under  the  impression  that 
she  was  clinging  to  their  ideals.  Little  things  filled 
her  days  —  the  trivial  details  of  the  classroom  and  of 
the  market,  the  small  domestic  disturbances  of  her 
neighbours,  the  moral  or  mental  delinquencies  of 
her  two  coloured  servants  —  and  even  her  religious 
veneration  for  the  Episcopal  Church  had  crystallized 
at  last  into  a  worship  of  customs. 

To-day,  at  the  beginning  of  the  industrial  awakening 
of  the  South,  she  (who  was  but  the  embodied  spirit 
of  her  race)  stood  firmly  rooted  in  all  that  was  static, 


THE  SYSTEM  13 

in  all  that  was  obsolete  and  outgrown  in  the  Virginia 
of  the  eighties.  Though  she  felt  as  yet  merely  the 
vague  uneasiness  with  which  her  mind  recoiled  from 
the  first  stirrings  of  change,  she  was  beginning  dimly 
to  realize  that  the  car  of  progress  would  move  through 
the  quiet  streets  before  the  decade  was  over.  The 
smoke  of  factories  was  already  succeeding  the  smoke 
of  the  battlefields,  and  out  of  the  ashes  of  a  vanquished 
idealism  the  spirit  of  commercial  materialism  was 
born.  What  was  left  of  the  old  was  fighting  valiantly, 
but  hopelessly,  against  what  had  come  of  the  new. 
The  two  forces  filled  the  streets  of  Dinwiddie.  They 
were  embodied  in  classes,  in  individuals,  in  articles 
of  faith,  in  ideals  of  manners.  The  symbol  of  the 
one  spirit  was  the  memorial  wreaths  on  the  battle 
fields;  of  the  other  it  was  the  prophetic  smoke  of  the 
factories.  From  where  she  stood  in  High  Street,  she 
could  see  this  incense  to  Mammon  rising  above  the 
spires  of  the  churches,  above  the  houses  and  the 
hovels,  above  the  charm  and  the  provincialism  which 
made  the  Dinwiddie  of  the  eighties.  And  this  charm, 
as  well  as  this  provincialism,  appeared  to  her  to  be 
so  inalienable  a  part  of  the  old  order,  with  its  intrepid 
faith  in  itself,  with  its  militant  enthusiasm,  with  its 
courageous  battle  against  industrial  evolution,  with 
its  strength,  its  narrowness,  its  nobility,  its  blindness, 
that,  looking  ahead,  she  could  discern  only  the  arid 
stretch  of  a  civilization  from  which  the  last  remnant 
of  beauty  was  banished  forever.  Already  she  felt 
the  breaking  of  those  bonds  of  sympathy  which  had 
held  the  twenty-one  thousand  inhabitants  of  Dinwiddie, 
as  they  had  held  the  entire  South,  solidly  knit  together 
in  a  passive  yet  effectual  resistance  to  the  spirit  of 


14  VIRGINIA 

change.  Of  the  world  beyond  the  borders  of  Virginia, 
Dinwiddians  knew  merely  that  it  was  either  Yankee 
or  foreign,  and  therefore  to  be  pitied  or  condemned 
according  to  the  Evangelical  or  the  Calvinistic  convic 
tions  of  the  observer.  Philosophy,  they  regarded 
with  the  distrust  of  a  people  whose  notable  achieve 
ments  have  not  been  in  the  direction  of  the  contempla 
tive  virtues ;  and  having  lived  comfortably  and  created 
a  civilization  without  the  aid  of  science,  they  could 
afford  not  unreasonably  to  despise  it.  It  was  a 
quarter  of  a  century  since  "The  Origin  of  Species" 
had  changed  the  course  of  the  world's  thought,  yet  it 
had  never  reached  them.  To  be  sure,  there  was  an 
old  gentleman  in  Tabb  Street  whose  title,  "the  pro 
fessor,"  had  been  conferred  in  public  recognition  of 
peaceful  pursuits;  but  since  he  never  went  to  church, 
his  learning  was  chiefly  effective  when  used  to  point 
a  moral  from  the  pulpit.  There  was,  also,  a  tradition 
that  General  Goode  had  been  seen  reading  Plato 
before  the  Battle  of  Seven  Pines;  and  this  picturesque 
incident  had  contributed  the  distinction  of  the  scholar 
to  the  more  effulgent  glory  of  the  soldier.  But  for 
purely  abstract  thought  —  for  the  thought  that  did  not 
construct  an  heroic  attitude  or  a  concrete  image  - 
there  was  as  little  room  in  the  newer  industrial  system 
as  there  had  been  in  the  aristocratic  society  which 
preceded  it.  The  world  still  clung  to  the  belief  that 
the  business  of  humanity  was  confined  to  the 
preservation  of  the  institutions  which  existed 
in  the  present  moment  of  history  —  and  Dinwiddie 
was  only  a  quiet  backwater  into  which  opinions, 
like  fashions,  were  borne  on  the  current  of  some 
tributary  stream  of  thought.  Human  nature  in  this 


THE  SYSTEM  15 

town  of  twenty-one  thousand  inhabitants  differed 
from  human  nature  in  London  or  in  the  Desert  of 
Sahara  mainly  in  the  things  that  it  ate  and  the  manner 
in  which  it  carried  its  clothes.  The  same  passions 
stirred  its  heart,  the  same  instincts  moved  its  body, 
the  same  contentment  with  things  as  they  are,  and 
the  same  terror  of  things  as  they  might  be,  warped 
its  mind. 

The  canary  fluted  on,  and  from  beyond  the  mulberry 
trees  there  floated  the  droning  voice  of  an  aged  negress, 
in  tatters  and  a  red  bandanna  turban,  who  persua 
sively  offered  strawberries  to  the  silent  houses. 

"I'se  got  sw-eet  straw-ber'-ies !  I'se  got  swe-e-t 
str-aw-ber'-ies !  Yes'm,  I'se  got  sw-e-et  straw-ber'ies 
des  f'om  de  coun-try!" 

Then,  suddenly,  out  of  nothing,  it  seemed  to  Miss 
Priscilla,  a  miracle  occurred!  The  immemorial  calm 
of  High  Street  was  broken  by  the  sound  of  rapidly 
moving  wheels  (not  the  jingling  rattle  of  market  wagons 
nor  the  comfortable  roll  of  doctors'  buggies),  and  a 
strange  new  vehicle,  belonging  to  the  Dinwiddie 
Livery  Stables,  and  containing  a  young  man  with 
longish  hair  and  a  flowing  tie,  turned  the  corner 
by  Saint  James'  Church,  and  passed  over  the  earthen 
roadbed  in  front  of  the  green  lattice.  As  the  young 
man  went  by,  he  looked  up  quickly,  smiled  with  the 
engaging  frankness  of  a  genial  nature,  and  lifting 
his  hat  with  a  charming  bow,  revealed  to  Miss  Priscilla's 
eyes  the  fact  that  his  hair  was  thick  and  dark  as  well 
as  long  and  wavy.  While  he  looked  at  her,  she  noticed, 
also,  that  he  had  a  thin,  high-coloured  face,  lighted 
by  a  pair  of  eager  dark  eyes  which  lent  a  glow  of 
impetuous  energy  to  his  features.  The  Tread  well 


16  VIRGINIA 

nose,  she  recognized,  but  beneath  the  Tread  well  nose 
there  was  a  clean-shaven,  boyish  mouth  which  belied 
the  Treadwell  nature  in  every  sensitive  curve  and 
outline. 

"I'd  have  known  him  anywhere  from  Susan's 
description,"  she  thought,  and  added  suspiciously, 
"I  wonder  why  he  peered  so  long  around  that  corner? 
It  wouldn't  surprise  me  a  bit  if  those  girls  were  coming 
back  that  way." 

Impelled  by  her  mounting  excitement,  she  leaned 
forward  until  the  ball  of  orange-coloured  yarn  rolled 
from  her  short  lap  and  over  the  polished  floor  of  the 
porch.  Before  she  could  stoop  to  pick  it  up,  she  was 
arrested  by  the  reappearance  of  the  two  girls  at  the 
corner  beyond  which  Oliver  had  gazed  so  intently. 
Then,  as  they  drew  nearer,  she  saw  that  Virginia's  face 
was  pink  and  her  eyes  starry  under  their  lowered 
lashes.  An  inward  radiance  shone  in  the  girl's  look, 
and  appeared  to  shape  her  soul  and  body  to  its  secret 
influence.  Miss  Priscilla,  who  had  known  her  since 
the  first  day  she  came  to  school  (with  her  lunch,  from 
which  she  refused  to  be  parted,  tightly  tied  up  in  a 
red  and  white  napkin),  felt  suddenly  that  she  was  a 
stranger.  A  quality  which  she  had  never  realized 
her  pupil  possessed  had  risen  supreme  in  an  instant 
over  the  familiar  attributes  of  her  character.  So 
quickly  does  emotion  separate  the  individual  from  the 
inherent  soul  of  the  race. 

Susan,  who  was  a  little  in  advance,  came  rapidly 
up  the  walk,  and  the  older  woman  greeted  her  with 
the  words : 

"My  dear,  I  have  seen  him!" 

"  Yes,  he  just  passed  us  at  the  corner,  and  I  wondered 


THE  SYSTEM  17 

if  you  were  looking.  Do  tell  us  what  you  think  of 
him." 

She  sat  down  in  a  low  chair  by  the  teacher's  side, 
while  Virginia  went  over  to  the  cage  and  stood  gazing 
thoughtfully  at  the  singing  bird. 

"Well,  I  don't  think  his  nose  spoils  him,"  replied 
Miss  Priscilla  after  a  minute,  "but  there's  something 
foreign  looking  about  him,  and  I  hope  Cyrus  isn't 
thinking  seriously  about  putting  him  into  the  bank." 

"That  was  the  first  thing  that  occurred  to  father," 
answered  Susan,  "but  Oliver  told  me  last  night  while 
we  were  unpacking  his  books  —  he  has  a  quantity 
of  books  and  he  kept  them  even  when  he  had  to  sell 
his  clothes  —  that  he  didn't  see  to  save  his  life  how 
he  was  going  to  stand  it." 

"Stand  what?"  inquired  Miss  Priscilla,  a  trifle 
tartly,  for  after  the  vicissitudes  of  her  life  it  was 
but  natural  that  she  should  hesitate  to  regard  so 
stable  an  institution  as  the  Dinwiddie  Bank  as 
something  to  be  "stood."  "Why,  I  thought  a  young 
man  couldn't  do  better  than  get  a  place  in  the  bank. 
Jinny's  father  was  telling  me  in  the  market  last  Satur 
day  that  he  wanted  his  nephew  John  Henry  to  start 
right  in  there  if  they  could  find  room  for  him." 

"Oh,  of  course,  it's  just  what  John  Henry  would 
like,"  said  Virginia,  speaking  for  the  first  time. 

"Then  if  it's  good  enough  for  John  Henry,  it's 
good  enough  for  Oliver,  I  reckon,"  rejoined  Miss 
Priscilla.  "Anybody  who  has  mixed  with  beggars 
oughtn't  to  turn  up  his  nose  at  a  respectable  bank." 

"But  he  says  it's  because  the  bank  is  so  respectable 
that  he  doesn't  think  he  could  stand  it,"  answered 
Susan. 


18  VIRGINIA 

Virginia,  who  had  been  looking  with  her  rapt  gaze 
down  the  deserted  street,  quivered  at  the  words  as 
if  they  had  stabbed  her. 

"But  he  wants  to  be  a  writer,  Susan,"  she  protested. 
"A  great  many  very  nice  people  are  writers." 

"Then  why  doesn't  he  go  about  it  in  a  proper  way, 
if  he  isn't  ashamed  of  it?"  asked  the  teacher,  and  she 
added  reflectively  after  a  pause,  "I  wish  he'd  write 
a  good  history  of  the  war  —  one  that  doesn't  deal  so 
much  with  the  North.  I've  almost  had  to  stop  teach 
ing  United  States  history  because  there  is  hardly  one 
written  now  that  I  would  let  come  inside  my  doors." 

"He  doesn't  want  to  write  histories,"  replied  Susan. 
"Father  suggested  to  him  at  supper  last  night  that 
if  he  would  try  his  hand  at  a  history  of  Virginia,  and 
be  careful  not  to  put  in  anything  that  might  offend 
anybody,  he  could  get  it  taught  in  every  private  school 
in  the  State.  But  he  said  he'd  be  shot  first." 

"Perhaps  he's  a  genius,"  said  Virginia  in  a  startled 
voice.  "Geniuses  are  always  different  from  other 
people,  aren't  they?" 

"I  don't  know,"  answered  Susan  doubtfully.  "He 
talks  of  things  I  never  heard  of  before,  and  he  seems 
to  think  that  they  are  the  most  important  things  in 
the  world." 

"What  things?"  asked  Virginia  breathlessly. 

"Oh,  I  can't  tell  you  because  they  are  so  new,  but 
he  seems  on  fire  when  he  talks  of  them.  He  talks  for 
hours  about  art  and  its  service  to  humanity  and  about 
going  down  to  the  people  and  uplifting  the  masses." 

"I  hope  he  doesn't  mean  the  negroes,"  commented 
Miss  Priscilla  suspiciously. 

"He  means  the  whole  world,  I  believe,"  responded 


THE  SYSTEM  19 

Susan.  "He  quotes  all  the  time  from  writers  I've 
never  heard  of,  and  he  laughs  at  every  book  he  sees 
in  the  house.  Yesterday  he  picked  up  one  of  Mrs. 
Southworth's  novels  on  mother's  bureau  and  asked 
her  how  she  could  allow  such  immoral  stuff  in  her 
room.  She  had  got  it  out  of  the  bookcase  to  lend  to 
Miss  Willy  Whitlow,  who  was  there  making  my  dress, 
but  he  scolded  her  so  about  it  that  at  last  Miss  Willy 
went  off  with  Mill's  'Essay  on  Liberty,'  and  mother 
burned  all  of  Mrs.  South  worth's  that  she  had  in  the 
house.  Oliver  has  been  so  nice  to  mother  that  I 
believe  she  would  make  a  bonfire  of  her  furniture  if  he 
asked  her  to  do  it." 

"Is  he  really  trying  to  unsettle  Miss  Willy's  mind?" 
questioned  the  teacher  anxiously.  "How  on  earth 
could  she  go  out  sewing  by  the  day  if  she  didn't  have 
her  religious  convictions?" 

"That's  just  what  I  asked  him,"  returned  Susan, 
who,  besides  being  dangerously  clever,  had  a  re 
markably  level  head  to  keep  her  balanced.  "But  he 
answered  that  until  people  got  unsettled  they  would 
never  move,  and  when  I  wanted  to  find  out  where  he 
thought  poor  little  Miss  Willy  could  possibly  move  to, 
he  only  got  impatient  and  said  that  I  was  trying  to 
bury  the  principle  under  the  facts.  We  very  nearly 
quarrelled  over  Miss  Willy,  but  of  course  she  took 
the  book  to  please  Oliver  and  couldn't  worry  through 
a  line  of  it  to  save  her  soul." 

"Did  he  say  anything  about  his  work?  What  he 
wants  to  do,  I  mean?"  asked  Virginia,  and  her  voice 
was  so  charged  with  feeling  that  it  gave  an  emotional 
quality  to  the  question. 

"He  wants  to  write,"  replied  Susan.     "His  whole 


20  VIRGINIA 

heart  is  in  it,  and  when  he  isn't  talking  about  reaching 
the  people,  he  talks  about  what  he  calls  *  technique."3 

"Are  you  sure  it  isn't  poetry?"  inquired  Miss 
Priscilla,  humming  back  like  a  bee  to  the  tempting 
sweets  of  conjecture.  "I've  always  heard  that  poetry 
was  the  ruination  of  Poe." 

"No,  it  isn't  poetry  —  not  exactly  at  least  —  it's 
plays,"  answered  Susan.  "He  talked  to  me  till 
twelve  o'clock  last  night  while  we  were  arranging  his 
books,  and  he  told  me  that  he  meant  to  write  really 
great  dramas,  but  that  America  wasn't  ready  for 
them  yet  and  that  was  why  he  had  had  to  sell  his 
clothes.  He  looked  positively  starved,  but  he  says 
he  doesn't  mind  starving  a  while  if  he  can  only  live 
up  to  his  ideal." 

"Well,  I  wonder  what  his  ideal  is?"  remarked  Miss 
Priscilla  grimly. 

"It  has  something  to  do  with  his  belief  that  art 
can  grow  only  out  of  sacrifice,"  said  Susan.  "I  never 
heard  anybody  —  not  even  Jinny's  father  in  church  — 
talk  so  much  about  sacrifice." 

"But  the  rector  doesn't  talk  about  sacrifice  for 
the  theatre,"  retorted  the  teacher,  and  she  added 
with  crushing  finality,  "I  don't  believe  there  is  a  par 
ticle  of  sense  in  it.  If  he  is  going  to  write,  why  on 
earth  doesn't  he  sit  straight  down  and  do  it?  Why, 
when  little  Miss  Amanda  Sheppard  was  left  at  sixty 
without  a  roof  over  her  head,  she  began  at  once, 
without  saying  a  word  to  anybody,  to  write  historical 
novels." 

"It  does  seem  funny  until  you  talk  with  him," 
admitted  Susan.  "But  he  is  so  much  in  earnest  that 
when  you  listen  to  him,  you  can't  help  believing  in 


THE  SYSTEM  21 

him.     He  is  so  full  of  convictions  that  he  convinces 
you  in  spite  of  yourself." 

"Convictions  about  what?"  demanded  Miss  Priscilla. 
"I  don't  see  how  a  young  man  who  refuses  to  be 
confirmed  can  have  any  convictions." 

"Well,  he  has,  and  he  feels  just  as  strongly  about 
them  as  we  do  about  ours." 

"But  how  can  he  possibly  feel  as  strongly  about  a 
wrong  conviction  as  we  do  about  a  right  one?"  insisted 
the  older  woman  stubbornly,  for  she  realized  vaguely 
that  they  were  approaching  dangerous  ground  and 
set  out  to  check  their  advance  in  true  Dinwiddie 
fashion,  which  was  strictly  prohibitive. 

"I  like  a  man  who  has  opinions  of  his  own  and  isn't 
ashamed  to  stand  up  for  them,"  said  Virginia  with  a 
resolution  that  made  her  appear  suddenly  taller. 

"Not  false  opinions,  Jinny!"  rejoined  Miss  Priscilla, 
and  her  manner  carried  them  with  a  bound  back  to 
the  schoolroom,  for  her  mental  vision  saw  in  a  flash 
the  beribboned  diploma  for  good  conduct  which  her 
favourite  pupil  had  borne  away  from  the  Academy  on 
Commencement  day  two  years  ago,  and  a  shudder 
seized  her  lest  she  should  have  left  a  single  unprotected 
breach  in  the  girl's  mind  through  which  an  unauthor 
ized  idea  might  enter.  Had  she  trusted  too 
confidently  to  the  fact  that  Virginia's  father  was  a 
clergyman,  and  therefore  spiritually  armed  for  the  de 
fence  and  guidance  of  his  daughter?  Virginia,  in  spite 
of  her  gaiety,  had  been  what  Miss  Priscilla  called  "a 
docile  pupil,"  meaning  one  who  deferentially  sub 
mitted  her  opinions  to  her  superiors,  and  to  go 
through  life  perpetually  submitting  her  opinions  was, 
in  the  eyes  of  her  parents  and  her  teacher,  the 


22  VIRGINIA 

divinely  appointed  task  of  woman.  Her  education 
was  founded  upon  the  simple  theory  that  the  less  a 
girl  knew  about  life,  the  better  prepared  she  would 
be  to  contend  with  it.  Knowledge  of  any  sort 
(except  the  rudiments  of  reading  and  writing,  the 
geography  of  countries  she  would  never  visit,  and  the 
dates  of  battles  she  would  never  mention)  was  kept 
from  her  as  rigorously  as  if  it  contained  the  germs 
of  a  contagious  disease.  And  this  ignorance  of  any 
thing  that  could  possibly  be  useful  to  her  was  supposed 
in  some  mysterious  way  to  add  to  her  value  as  a 
woman  and  to  make  her  a  more  desirable  companion 
to  a  man  who,  either  by  experience  or  by  instinct, 
was  expected  "to  know  his  world."  Unlike  Susan 
(who,  in  a  community  which  offered  few  opportunities 
to  women  outside  of  the  nursery  or  the  kitchen, 
had  been  born  with  the  inquiring  spirit  and  would  ask 
questions),  Virginia  had  until  to-day  accepted  with 
humility  the  doctrine  that  a  natural  curiosity  about 
the  universe  is  the  beginning  of  infidelity.  The  chief 
object  of  her  upbringing,  which  differed  in  no  essential 
particular  from  that  of  every  other  well-born  and  well- 
bred  Southern  woman  of  her  day,  was  to  paralyze 
her  reasoning  faculties  so  completely  that  all  danger 
of  mental  "unsettling"  or  even  movement  was  elimi 
nated  from  her  future.  To  solidify  the  forces  of  mind 
into  the  inherited  mould  of  fixed  beliefs  was,  in  the 
opinion  of  the  age,  to  achieve  the  definite  end  of 
all  education.  When  the  child  ceased  to  wonder 
before  the  veil  of  appearances,  the  battle  of  orthodoxy 
with  speculation  was  over,  and  Miss  Priscilla  felt  that 
she  could  rest  on  her  victory.  With  Susan  she  had 
failed,  because  the  daughter  of  Cyrus  Treadwell  was 


THE  SYSTEM  23 

one  of  those  inexplicable  variations  from  ancestral 
stock  over  which  the  naturalists  were  still  waging 
their  merry  war;  but  Virginia,  with  a  line  of  earnest 
theologians  and  of  saintly  self-effacing  women  at  her 
back,  offered  as  little  resistance  as  some  exquisite  plastic 
material  in  the  teacher's  hands. 

Now,  as  if  the  same  lightning  flash  which  had 
illuminated  the  beribboned  diploma  in  Miss  Priscilla's 
mind  had  passed  to  Virginia  also,  the  girl  bit  back 
a  retort  that  was  trembling  on  her  lips.  "I  wonder 
if  she  can  be  getting  to  know  things?"  thought  the 
older  woman  as  she  watched  her,  and  she  added 
half  resentfully,  "I've  sometimes  suspected  that 
Gabriel  Pendleton  was  almost  too  mild  and  easy 
going  for  a  clergyman.  If  the  Lord  hadn't  made 
him  a  saint,  Heaven  knows  what  would  have  become 
of  him!" 

"Don't  try  to  put  notions  into  Jinny's  head,  Susan," 
she  said  after  a  thoughtful  pause.  "If  Oliver  were 
the  right  kind  of  young  man,  he'd  give  up  this  non 
sense  and  settle  down  to  some  sober  work.  The  first 
time  I  get  a  chance  I'm  going  to  tell  him  so." 

"I  don't  believe  it  will  be  any  use,"  responded 
Susan.  "Father  tried  to  reason  with  him  last  night, 
and  they  almost  quarrelled." 

"Quarrelled  with  Cyrus!"  gasped  the  teacher. 

"At  one  time  I  thought  he'd  walk  out  of  the  house 
and  never  come  back,"  pursued  Susan.  "He  told 
father  that  his  sordid  commercialism  would  end  by 
destroying  all  that  was  charming  in  Dinwiddie. 
Afterward  he  apologized  for  his  rudeness,  but  when 
he  did  so,  he  said,  'I  meant  every  word  of  it.": 

"Well,  I  never!"  was  Miss  Priscilla's  feeble  rejoinder. 


24  VIRGINIA 

"The  idea  of  his  daring  to  talk  that  way  when  Cyrus 
had  to  pay  his  fare  down  from  New  York." 

"Of  course  father  brought  it  on,"  returned  Susan 
judicially.  "You  know  he  doesn't  like  anybody  to 
disagree  with  him,  and  when  Oliver  began  to  argue 
about  its  being  unscrupulous  to  write  history  the 
way  people  wanted  it,  he  lost  his  temper  and  said 
some  angry  things  about  the  theatre  and  actors." 

"I  suppose  a  great  man  like  your  father  may  expect 
his  family  to  bow  to  his  opinions,"  replied  the  teacher, 
for  so  obscure  was  her  mental  connection  between 
the  construction  of  the  future  and  the  destruction  of 
the  past,  that  she  could  honestly  admire  Cyrus  Tread- 
well  for  possessing  the  qualities  her  soul  abhorred, 
The  simple  awe  of  financial  success,  which  occupies  in 
the  American  mind  the  vacant  space  of  the  monarch 
ical  cult,  had  begun  already  to  generate  the  myth  of 
greatness  around  Cyrus,  and,  like  all  other  myths, 
this  owed  its  origin  less  to  the  wilful  conspiracy  of  the 
few  than  it  did  to  the  confiding  superstition  of  the 
many. 

"I  hope  Oliver  won't  do  anything  rash,"  said 
Susan,  ignoring  Miss  Priscilla's  tribute.  "He  is  so 
impulsive  and  headstrong  that  I  don't  see  how  he 
can  get  on  with  father." 

At  this  Virginia  broke  her  quivering  silence.  "  Can't 
you  make  him  careful,  Susan?"  she  asked,  and  without 
waiting  for  an  answer,  bent  over  and  kissed  Miss 
Priscilla  on  the  cheek.  "I  must  be  going  now  or 
mother  will  worry,"  she  added  before  she  tripped 
ahead  of  Susan  down  the  steps  and  along  the  palely 
shining  path  to  the  gate. 

Rising  from  her  chair,  Miss  Priscilla  leaned  over 


THE  SYSTEM  25 

the  railing  of  the  porch,  and  gazed  wistfully  after  the 
girls'  vanishing  figures. 

"If  there  was  ever  a  girl  who  looked  as  if  she  were 
cut  out  for  happiness,  it  is  Jinny  Pendleton,"  she  said 
aloud  after  a  minute.  A  tear  welled  in  her  eye,  and 
rolling  over  her  cheek,  dropped  on  her  bosom.  From 
some  obscure  corner  of  her  memory,  undevastated  by 
war  or  by  ruin,  her  own  youth  appeared  to  take  the 
place  of  Virginia's.  She  saw  herself,  as  she  had  seen 
the  other  an  instant  before,  standing  flushed  and 
expectant  before  the  untrodden  road  of  the  future. 
She  heard  again  the  wings  of  happiness  rustling  unseen 
about  her,  and  she  felt  again  the  great  hope  which  is 
the  challenge  that  youth  flings  to  destiny.  Life 
rose  before  her,  not  as  she  had  found  it,  but  as  she 
had  once  believed  it  to  be.  The  days  when  little 
things  had  not  filled  her  thoughts  returned  in  the 
fugitive  glow  of  her  memory  —  for  she,  also,  middle- 
aged,  obese,  cumbered  with  trivial  cares,  had  had  her 
dream  of  a  love  that  would  change  and  glorify  the 
reality.  The  heritage  of  woman  was  hers  as  well  as 
Virginia's.  And  for  the  first  time,  standing  there,  she 
grew  dimly  conscious  of  the  portion  of  suffering  which 
Nature  had  allotted  to  them  both  from  the  beginning. 
Was  it  all  waiting  —  waiting,  as  it  had  been  while 
battles  were  fought  and  armies  were  marching?  Did 
the  future  hold  this  for  Virginia  also?  Would  life 
yield  nothing  more  to  that  radiant  girl  than  it  had 
yielded  to  her  or  to  the  other  women  whom  she  had 
known?  Strange  how  the  terrible  innocence  of  youth 
had  moved  her  placid  middle-age  as  if  it  were  sadness! 


CHAPTER  H 

HER    INHERITANCE 

A  BLOCK  away,  near  the  head  of  High  Street,  stood 
the  old  church  of  Saint  James,  and  at  its  back,  separated 
by  a  white  paling  fence  from  the  squat  pinkish  tower 
and  the  solitary  grave  in  the  churchyard  (which  was 
that  of  a  Southern  soldier  who  had  fallen  in  the  Battle 
of  Dinwiddie) ,  was  the  oblong  wooden  rectory  in  which 
Gabriel  Pendleton  had  lived  since  he  had  exchanged 
his  sword  for  a  prayer-book  and  his  worn  Confeder 
ate  uniform  for  a  surplice.  The  church,  which  was 
redeemed  from  architectural  damnation  by  its  sacred 
cruciform  and  its  low  ivied  buttresses  where  innumer 
able  sparrows  nested,  cast  its  shadow,  on  clear  days, 
over  the  beds  of  bleeding  hearts  and  lilies-of-the-valley 
in  the  neglected  garden,  to  the  quaint  old  house,  with 
its  spreading  wings,  its  outside  chimneys,  and  its  sloping 
shingled  roof,  from  which  five  dormer-windows  stared 
in  a  row  over  the  slender  columns  of  the  porch.  The 
garden  had  been  planned  in  the  days  when  it  was  easy 
to  put  a  dozen  slaves  to  uprooting  weeds  or  trimming 
flower  beds,  and  had  passed  in  later  years  to  the  breath 
less  ministrations  of  negro  infants,  whose  experience 
varied  from  the  doubtful  innocence  of  the  crawling  age 
to  the  complete  sophistication  of  six  or  seven  years. 
Dandelion  and  wire-grass  rioted,  in  spite  of  their  earnest 
efforts,  over  the  crooked  path  from  the  porch,  and  peri- 

26 


HER  INHERITANCE  27 

winkle,  once  an  intruder  from  the  churchyard,  spread 
now  in  rank  disorder  down  the  terraced  hillside  on  the 
left,  where  a  steep  flight  of  steps  fell  clear  to  the  narrow 
cross  street  descending  gradually  into  the  crowded 
quarters  of  the  town.  Directly  in  front  of  the  porch 
on  either  side  of  the  path  grew  two  giant  paulownia 
trees,  royal  at  this  season  in  a  mantle  of  violet  blossoms, 
and  it  was  under  their  arching  boughs  that  the  girls 
stopped  when  they  had  entered  the  garden.  Ever 
since  Virginia  could  remember,  she  had  heard  threats 
of  cutting  down  the  paulownias  because  of  the  litter 
the  falling  petals  made  in  the  spring,  and  ever  since  she 
could  lisp  at  all  she  had  begged  her  father  to  spare 
them  for  the  sake  of  the  enormous  roots,  into  which 
she  had  loved  to  cuddle  and  hide. 

"If  I  were  ever  to  go  away,  I  believe  they  would  cut 
down  these  trees,"  she  said  now  a  little  wistfully,  but 
she  was  not  thinking  of  the  paulownias. 

"Why  should  they  when  they  give  such  splendid 
shade?  And,  besides,  they  wouldn't  do  anything  you 
didn't  like  for  worlds." 

"Oh,  of  course  they  wouldn't,  but  as  soon  as  I  was 
out  of  sight  they  might  persuade  themselves  that  I 
liked  it,"  answered  Virginia,  with  a  tender  laugh. 
Though  she  was  not  by  nature  discerning,  there  were 
moments  when  she  surprised  Susan  by  her  penetrating 
insight  into  the  character  of  her  parents,  and  this  in 
sight,  which  was  emotional  rather  than  intellectual, 
had  enabled  her  to  dominate  them  almost  from  infancy. 

Silence  fell  between  them,  while  they  gazed  through 
the  veil  of  twilight  at  the  marble  shaft  above  the  grave 
of  the  Confederate  soldier.  Then  suddenly  Susan 
spoke  in  a  constrained  voice,  without  turning  her  head. 


28  VIRGINIA 

"Jinny,  Oliver  isn't  one  bit  of  a  hero  —  not  the 
kind  of  hero  we  used  to  talk  about."  It  was  with  dif 
ficulty,  urged  by  a  vigorous  and  uncompromising  con 
science,  that  she  had  uttered  the  words. 

"And  besides,"  retorted  Virginia  merrily,  "he  is  in 
love  with  Abby  Goode." 

"I  don't  believe  that.  They  stayed  in  the  same 
boarding-house  once,  and  you  know  how  Abby  is 
about  men." 

"Yes,  I  know,  and  it's  just  the  way  men  are  about 
Abby." 

"Well,  Oliver  isn't,  I'm  sure.  I  don't  believe  he's 
ever  given  her  more  than  a  thought,  and  he  told  me  last 
night  that  he  couldn't  abide  a  bouncing  woman." 

"Does  Abby  bounce?" 

"You  know  she  does  —  dreadfully.  But  it  wasn't 
because  of  Abby  that  I  said  what  I  did." 

Something  quivered  softly  between  them,  and  a  petal 
from  the  Jacqueminot  rose  in  Virginia's  hair  fluttered 
like  a  crimson  moth  out  into  the  twilight.  "Was  it 
because  of  him,  then?"  she  asked  in  a  whisper. 

For  a  moment  Susan  did  not  answer.  Her  gaze  was 
on  the  flight  of  steps,  and  drawing  Virginia  with  her, 
she  began  to  walk  slowly  toward  the  terraced  side  of  the 
garden.  An  old  lamplighter,  carrying  his  ladder  to  a 
lamp-post  at  the  corner,  smiled  up  at  them  with  his 
sunken  toothless  mouth  as  he  went  by. 

"Partly,  darling,"  said  Susan.  "He  is  so  —  I  don't 
know  how  to  make  you  understand  —  so  unsettled. 
No,  that  isn't  exactly  what  I  mean." 

Her  fine,  serious  face  showed  clear  and  pale  in  the 
twilight.  From  the  high  forehead,  under  the  girlish 
fringe  of  fair  hair,  to  the  thin,  firm  lips,  which  were  too 


HER  INHERITANCE  29 

straight  and  colourless  for  beauty,  it  was  the  face  of  a 
woman  who  could  feel  strongly,  but  whose  affections 
would  never  blur  the  definite  forms  or  outlines  of  life. 
She  looked  out  upon  the  world  with  level,  dispassionate 
eyes  in  which  there  was  none  of  Virginia's  uncritical, 
emotional  softness.  Temperamentally  she  was  un 
compromisingly  honest  in  her  attitude  toward  the 
universe,  which  appeared  to  her,  not  as  it  did  to  Vir 
ginia,  in  mere  formless  masses  of  colour  out  of  which 
people  and  objects  emerged  like  figures  painted  on  air, 
but  as  distinct,  impersonal,  and  final  as  a  geometrical 
problem.  She  was  one  of  those  women  who  are  called 
"sensible"  by  their  acquaintances  —  meaning  that  they 
are  born  already  disciplined  and  confirmed  in  the  quieter 
and  more  orderly  processes  of  life.  Her  natural  in 
telligence  having  overcome  the  defects  of  her  educa 
tion,  she  thought  not  vaguely,  but  with  clearness  and 
precision,  and  something  of  this  clearness  and  pre 
cision  was  revealed  in  her  manner  and  in  her  appear 
ance,  as  if  she  had  escaped  at  twenty  years  from  the 
impulsive  judgments  and  the  troublous  solicitudes  of 
youth.  At  forty,  she  would  probably  begin  to  grow 
young  again,  and  at  fifty,  it  is  not  unlikely  that  she 
would  turn  her  back  upon  old  age  forever.  Just  now 
she  was  too  tremendously  earnest  about  life,  which  she 
treated  quite  in  the  large  manner,  to  take  a  serious 
interest  in  living. 

"Promise  me,  Jinny,  that  you'll  never  let  anybody 
take  my  place,"  she  said,  turning  when  they  had 
reached  the  head  of  the  steps. 

"You  silly  Susan!  Why,  of  course,  they  shan't," 
replied  Virginia,  and  they  kissed  ecstatically. 

"Nobody  will  ever  love  you  as  I  do." 


30  VIRGINIA 

"And  I  you,  darling." 

With  arms  interlaced  they  stood  gazing  down  into 
the  street,  where  the  shadow  of  the  old  lamplighter 
glided  like  a  ghost  under  the  row  of  pale  flickering 
lights.  From  a  honeysuckle-trellis  on  the  other  side 
of  the  porch,  a  penetrating  sweetness  came  in  breaths, 
now  rising,  now  dying  away.  In  Virginia's  heart,  Love 
stirred  suddenly,  and  blind,  wingless,  imprisoned, 
struggled  for  freedom. 

"It  is  late,  I  must  be  going,"  said  Susan.  "I  wish 
we  lived  nearer  each  other." 

" Isn't  it  too  dark  for  you  to  go  alone?  John  Henry 
will  stop  on  his  way  from  work,  and  he'll  take  you  — 
if  you  really  won't  stay  to  supper." 

"No,  I  don't  mind  in  the  least  going  by  myself.  It 
isn't  night,  anyway,  and  people  are  sitting  out  on  their 
porches." 

A  minute  afterwards  they  parted,  Susan  going  swiftly 
down  High  Street,  while  Virginia  went  back  along  the 
path  to  the  porch,  and  passing  under  the  paulownias, 
stopped  beside  the  honeysuckle-trellis,  which  extended 
to  the  ruined  kitchen  garden  at  the  rear  of  the 
house.  Once  vegetables  were  grown  here,  but  except 
for  a  square  bed  of  mint  which  spread  hardily 
beneath  the  back  windows  of  the  dining-room,  the 
place  was  left  now  a  prey  to  such  barbarian  invaders  as 
burdock  and  moth  mullein.  On  the  brow  of  the  hill, 
where  the  garden  ended,  there  was  a  gnarled  and  twisted 
ailanthus  tree,  and  from  its  roots  the  ground  fell  sharply 
to  a  distant  view  of  rear  enclosures  and  grim  smoking 
factories.  Some  clothes  fluttered  on  a  line  that 
stretched  from  a  bough  of  the  tree,  and  turning  away  as 
if  they  offended  her,  Virginia  closed  her  eyes  and 


HER  INHERITANCE          .  31 

breathed  in  the  sweetness  of  the  honeysuckle,  which 
mingled  deliciously  with  the  strange  new  sense  of 
approaching  happiness  in  her  heart.  The  awaken 
ing  of  her  imagination  —  an  event  more  tumult 
uous  in  its  effects  than  the  mere  awakening  of  emotion 
—  had  changed  not  only  her  inner  life,  but  the  ordinary 
details  of  the  world  in  which  she  lived.  Because  a 
young  man,  who  differed  in  no  appreciable  manner 
from  dozens  of  other  young  men,  had  gazed 
into  her  eyes  for  an  instant,  the  whole  universe 
was  altered.  What  had  been  until  to-day  a  vague, 
wind-driven  longing  for  happiness,  the  reaching 
out  of  the  dream  toward  the  reality,  had  assumed 
suddenly  a  fixed  and  definite  purpose.  Her  bright 
girlish  visions  had  wrapped  themselves  in  a  garment  of 
flesh.  A  miracle  more  wonderful  than  any  she  had 
read  of  had  occurred  in  the  streets  of  Dinwiddie  —  in 
the  very  spot  where  she  had  walked,  with  blind  eyes 
and  deaf  ears,  every  day  since  she  could  remember. 
Her  soul  blossomed  in  the  twilight,  as  a  flower  blossoms, 
and  shed  its  virginal  sweetness.  For  the  first  time  in 
her  twenty  years  she  felt  that  an  unexplored  region  of 
happiness  surrounded  her.  Life  appeared  so  beautiful 
that  she  wanted  to  grasp  and  hold  each  fugitive  sen 
sation  before  it  escaped  her.  "This  is  different  from 
anything  I've  ever  known.  I  never  imagined  it  would 
be  like  this,"  she  thought,  and  the  next  minute:  "I 
wonder  why  no  one  has  ever  told  me  that  it  would 
happen?  I  wonder  if  it  has  ever  really  happened  be 
fore,  just  like  this,  since  the  world  began?  Of  all  the 
ways  I've  dreamed  of  his  coming,  I  never  thought  of 
this  way  —  no,  not  for  an  instant.  That  I  should  see 
him  first  in  the  street  like  any  stranger  —  that  he 


32  VIRGINIA 

should  be  Susan's  cousin  —  that  we  should  not  have 
spoken  a  word  before  I  knew  it  was  he!"  Everything 
about  him,  his  smile,  his  clothes,  the  way  he  held  his 
head  and  brushed  his  hair  straight  back  from  his  fore 
head,  his  manner  of  reclining  with  a  slight  slouch  on 
the  seat  of  the  cart,  the  picturesque  blue  dotted  tie  he 
wore,  his  hands,  his  way  of  bowing,  the  red-brown  of  his 
face,  and  above  all  the  eager,  impetuous  look  in  his 
dark  eyes  —  these  things  possessed  a  glowing  quality 
of  interest  which  irradiated  a  delicious  excitement  over 
the  bare  round  of  living.  It  was  enough  merely  to  be 
alive  and  conscious  that  some  day  —  to-morrow,  next 
week,  or  the  next  hour,  perhaps,  she  might  meet  again 
the  look  that  had  caused  this  mixture  of  ecstasy  and 
terror  in  her  heart.  The  knowledge  that  he  was  in  the 
same  town  with  her,  watching  the  same  lights,  think 
ing  the  same  thoughts,  breathing  the  same  fragrance  of 
honeysuckle  —  this  knowledge  was  a  fact  of  such  tre 
mendous  importance  that  it  dwarfed  to  insignificance 
all  the  proud  historic  past  of  Dinwiddie.  Her  im 
agination,  seizing  upon  this  bit  of  actuality,  spun 
around  it  the  iridescent  gossamer  web  of  her  fancy. 
She  felt  that  it  was  sufficient  happiness  just  to  stand 
motionless  for  hours  and  let  this  thought  take  pos 
session  of  her.  Nothing  else  mattered  as  long  as  this 
one  thing  was  blissfully  true. 

Lights  came  out  softly  like  stars  in  the  houses  be 
yond  the  church-tower,  and  in  the  parlour  of  the  rec 
tory  a  lamp  flared  up  and  then  burned  dimly  under  a 
red  shade.  Looking  through  the  low  window,  she 
could  see  the  prim  set  of  mahogany  and  horsehair  furni 
ture,  with  its  deep,  heavily  carved  sofa  midway  of  the 
opposite  wall  and  the  twelve  chairs  which  custom  de- 


HER  INHERITANCE  33 

manded  arranged  stiffly  at  equal  distances  on  the  faded 
Axminster  carpet. 

For  a  moment  her  gaze  rested  on  the  claw-footed 
mahogany  table,  bearing  a  family  Bible  and  a  photo 
graph  album  bound  in  morocco;  on  the  engraving  of 
the  "Burial  of  Latane"  between  the  long  windows  at  the 
back  of  the  room;  on  the  cloudy,  gilt-framed  mirror 
above  the  mantel,  with  the  two  standing  candelabra 
reflected  in  its  surface  —  and  all  these  familiar  objects 
appeared  to  her  as  vividly  as  if  she  had  not  lived  with 
them  from  her  infancy.  A  new  light  had  fallen  over 
them,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  this  light  released  an 
inner  meaning,  a  hidden  soul,  even  in  the  claw-footed 
table  and  the  threadbare  Axminster  carpet.  Then  the 
door  into  the  hall  opened  and  her  mother  entered, 
wearing  the  patched  black  silk  dress  which  she  had 
bought  before  the  war  and  had  turned  and  darned  ever 
since  with  untiring  fingers.  Shrinking  back  into  the 
dusk,  Virginia  watched  the  thin,  slightly  stooping 
figure  as  it  stood  arrested  there  in  the  subdued  glow  of 
the  lamplight.  She  saw  the  pale  oval  face,  so  trans 
parent  that  it  was  like  the  face  of  a  ghost,  the  fine  brown 
hair  parted  smoothly  under  the  small  net  cap,  the  soft 
faded  eyes  in  their  hollowed  and  faintly  bluish  sockets, 
and  the  sweet,  patient  lips,  with  their  expression  of 
anxious  sympathy,  as  of  one  who  had  lived  not  in  her  own 
joys  and  sorrows,  but  in  those  of  others.  Vaguely, 
the  girl  realized  that  her  mother  had  had  what  is 
called  "a  hard  life,"  but  this  knowledge  brought  no 
tremor  of  apprehension  for  herself,  no  shadow  of  dis 
belief  in  her  own  unquestionable  right  to  happiness.  A 
glorious  certainty  possessed  her  that  her  own  life  would 
be  different  from  anything  that  had  ever  been  in  the  past. 


34  VIRGINIA 

The  front  door  opened  and  shut;  there  was  a  step 
on  the  soft  grass  under  the  honeysuckle-trellis,  and  her 
father  came  towards  her,  with  his  long  black  coat  flap 
ping  about  him.  He  always  wore  clothes  several 
sizes  too  large  for  him  under  the  impression  that  it  was 
a  point  of  economy  and  that  they  would  last  longer 
if  there  was  no  "strain"  put  upon  them.  He  was  a 
small,  wiry  man,  with  an  amazing  amount  of  strength 
for  his  build,  and  a  keen,  humorous  face,  ornamented  by 
a  pointed  chin  beard  which  he  called  his  "goatee."  His 
eyes  were  light  grey  with  a  twinkle  which  rarely  left 
them  except  at  the  altar,  and  the  skin  of  his  cheeks  had 
never  lost  the  drawn  and  parchment-like  look  ac 
quired  during  the  last  years  of  the  war.  One  of  the 
many  martial  Christians  of  the  Confederacy,  he  had 
laid  aside  his  surplice  at  the  first  call  for  troops  to  de 
fend  the  borders,  and  had  resumed  it  immediately  after 
the  surrender  at  Appomattox.  It  was  still  an  open 
question  in  Dinwiddie  whether  Gabriel  Pendleton,  who 
was  admitted  to  have  been  born  a  saint,  had  achieved 
greater  distinction  as  a  fighter  or  a  clergyman; 
though  he  himself  had  accepted  the  opposite  vocations 
with  equal  humility.  Only  in  the  dead  of  sweltering 
summer  nights  did  he  sometimes  arouse  his  wife  with  a 
groan  and  the  halting  words,  "Lucy,  I  can't  sleep  for 
thinking  of  those  men  I  killed  in  the  war."  But  with 
the  earliest  breeze  of  dawn,  his  remorse  usually  left  him, 
and  he  would  rise  and  go  about  his  parochial  duties 
with  the  serene  and  child-like  trust  in  Providence  that 
had  once  carried  him  into  battle.  A  militant  idealism 
had  ennobled  his  fighting  as  it  now  exalted  his  preach 
ing.  He  had  never  in  his  life  seen  things  as  they  are 
because  he  had  seen  them  always  by  the  white  flame  of 


HER  INHERITANCE  35 

a  soul  on  fire  with  righteousness.     To  reach  his  mind, 
impressions  of  persons   or  objects  had  first  to  pass 
through    a    refining    atmosphere    in    which    all    baser 
substances   were   eliminated,    and   no   fact   had   ever 
penetrated  this  medium  except  in  the  flattering  dis 
guise  of  a  sentiment.     Having  married  at  twenty  an 
idealist  only  less  ignorant  of  the  world  than  himself,  he 
had,  inspired  by  her  example,  immediately  directed  his 
energies   towards  the   whitewashing  of   the   actuality. 
Both  cherished  the  naive  conviction  that  to  acknowl 
edge  an  evil  is  in  a  manner  to  countenance  its  existence, 
and  both  clung  fervently  to  the  belief  that  a  pretty 
sham  has  a  more  intimate  relation  to  morality  than  has 
an  ugly  truth.     Yet  so  unconscious  were  they  of  weav 
ing  this  elaborate  tissue  of  illusion  around  the  world 
they  inhabited  that  they  called  the  mental  process  by 
which  they  distorted  the  reality,  "taking  a  true  view  of 
life."     To  "take  a  true  view"  was  to  believe  what  was 
pleasant  against  what  was  painful  in  spite  of  evidence: 
to  grant  honesty  to  all  men  (with  the  possible  exception 
of  the  Yankee  army  and  a  few  local  scalawags  known 
as  Readjustee) ;  to  deny  virtue  to  no  woman,  not  even 
to  the  New  England  Abolitionist;  to  regard  the  period 
before  the  war  in  Virginia  as  attained  perfection,  and 
the  present  as  falling  short  of  that  perfection  only  inas 
much  as  it  had  occurred  since  the  surrender.     As  life 
in  a  small  place,  among  a  simple  and  guileless  class  of 
gentlefolk,  all  passionately  cherishing  the  same  opin 
ions,  had  never  shaken  these  illusions,  it  was  but  natural 
that  they  should  have  done  their  best  to  hand  them 
down  as  sacred  heirlooms  to  their  only  child.     Even 
Gabriel's  four  years  of  hard  fighting  and  scant  rations 
were  enkindled  by  so  much  of  the  disinterested  idealism 


36  VIRGINIA 

that  had  sent  his  State  into  the  Confederacy,  that  he 
had  emerged  from  them  with  an  impoverished  body, 
but  an  enriched  spirit.  Combined  with  his  inherent 
inability  to  face  the  facts  of  life,  there  was  an  almost 
superhuman  capacity  for  cheerful  recovery  from  the 
shocks  of  adversity.  Since  he  had  married  by  accident 
the  one  woman  who  was  made  for  him,  he  had  managed 
to  preserve  untarnished  his  innocent  assumption  that 
marriages  were  arranged  in  Heaven  —  for  the  domestic 
infelicities  of  many  of  his  parishioners  were  powerless 
to  affect  a  belief  that  was  founded  upon  a  solitary  per 
sonal  experience.  Unhappy  marriages,  like  all  other 
misfortunes  of  society,  he  was  inclined  to  regard  as 
entirely  modern  and  due  mainly  to  the  decay  of  ante 
bellum  institutions.  "I  don't  remember  that  I  ever 
heard  of  a  discontented  servant  or  an  unhappy  mar 
riage  in  my  boyhood,"  he  would  say  when  he  was 
forced  against  his  will  to  consider  either  of  these  dis 
turbing  problems.  Not  progress,  but  a  return  to  the 
"ideals  of  our  ancestors,"  was  his  sole  hope  for  the 
future;  and  in  Virginia's  childhood  she  had  grown  to 
regard  this  phrase  as  second  in  reverence  only  to  that 
other  familiar  invocation :  "  If  it  be  the  will  of  God." 

As  he  stood  now  in  the  square  of  lamplight  that 
streamed  from  the  drawing-room  window,  she  looked 
into  his  thin,  humorous  face,  so  spiritualized  by  poverty 
and  self-sacrifice  that  it  had  become  merely  the  veil  for 
his  soul,  and  the  thought  came  to  her  that  she  had  never 
really  seen  him  as  he  was  until  to-day. 

"You're  out  late,  daughter.  Isn't  it  time  for  sup 
per?"  he  asked,  putting  his  arm  about  her.  Beneath 
the  simple  words  she  felt  the  profound  affection  which 
he  rarely  expressed,  but  of  which  she  was  conscious 


HER  INHERITANCE  37 

whenever  he  looked  at  her  or  spoke  to  her.  Two  days 
ago  this  affection,  of  which  she  never  thought  because  it 
belonged  to  her  by  right  like  the  air  she  breathed,  had 
been  sufficient  to  fill  her  life  to  overflowing;  and  now,  in 
less  than  a  moment,  the  simplest  accident  had  pushed 
it  into  the  background.  In  the  place  where  it  had  been 
there  was  a  restless  longing  which  seemed  at  one 
instant  a  part  of  the  universal  stirring  of  the  spring, 
and  became  the  next  an  importunate  desire  for  the 
coming  of  the  lover  to  whom  she  had  been  taught  to 
look  as  to  the  fulfilment  of  her  womanhood.  At  times 
this  lover  appeared  to  have  no  connection  with  Oliver 
Tread  well;  then  the  memory  of  his  eager  and  searching 
look  would  flush  the  world  with  a  magic  enchantment. 
"He  might  pass  here  at  any  minute,"  she  thought,  and 
immediately  every  simple  detail  of  her  life  was  illu 
minated  as  if  a  quivering  rosy  light  had  fallen  aslant  it. 
His  drive  down  High  Street  in  the  afternoon  had  left  a 
trail  of  glory  over  the  earthen  roadbed. 

"  Yes,  I  was  just  going  in,"  she  replied  to  the  rector's 
question,  and  added:  "How  sweet  the  honeysuckle 
smells!  I  never  knew  it  to  be  so  fragrant." 

"The  end  of  the  trellis  needs  propping  up.  I  noticed 
it  this  morning,"  he  returned,  keeping  his  arm  around 
her  as  they  passed  over  the  short  grassy  walk  and  up 
the  steps  to  the  porch.  Then  the  door  of  the  rectory 
opened,  and  the  silhouette  of  Mrs.  Pendleton,  in  her 
threadbare  black  silk  dress  with  her  cameo-like  profile 
softened  by  the  dark  bands  of  her  hair,  showed  motion 
less  against  the  lighted  space  of  the  hall. 

"We're  here,  Lucy,"  said  the  rector,  kissing  her;  and 
a  minute  later  they  entered  the  dining-room,  which  was 
on  the  right  of  the  staircase.  The  old  mahogany  table, 


38  VIRGINIA 

scarred  by  a  century  of  service,  was  laid  with  a  simple 
supper  of  bread,  tea,  and  sliced  ham  on  a  willow  dish. 
At  one  end  there  was  a  bowl  of  freshly  gathered  straw 
berries,  with  the  dew  still  on  them,  and  Mrs.  Pendleton 
hastened  to  explain  that  they  were  a  present  from  Tom 
Peachey,  who  had  driven  out  into  the  country  in  order 
to  get  them.  "Well,  I  hope  his  wife  has  some,  also," 
commented  the  rector.  "Tom's  a  good  fellow,  but  he 
could  never  keep  a  closed  fist,  there's  no  use  denying 
it." 

Mrs.  Pendleton,  who  had  never  denied  anything  in 
her  life,  except  the  biblical  sanction  for  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  to  the  Constitution,  shook  her  head 
gently  and  began  to  talk  in  the  inattentive  and  anxious 
manner  she  had  acquired  at  scantily  furnished  tables. 
Ever  since  the  war,  with  the  exception  of  the  Recon 
struction  period,  when  she  had  lived  practically  on 
charity,  she  had  managed  to  exist  with  serenity,  and 
numerous  negro  dependents,  on  the  rector's  salary  of  a 
thousand  dollars  a  year.  Simple  and  wholesome  food 
she  had  supplied  to  her  family  and  her  followers,  and 
for  their  desserts,  as  she  called  the  sweet  things  of  life, 
she  had  relied  with  touching  confidence  upon  her 
neighbours.  What  they  would  be  for  the  day,  she  did 
not  know,  but  since  poverty,  not  prosperity,  breeds  the 
generous  heart,  she  was  perfectly  assured  that  when 
Miss  Priscilla  was  putting  up  raspberries,  or  Mrs.  Goode 
was  making  lemon  pie,  she  should  not  be  forgotten. 
During  the  terrible  war  years,  it  had  become  the  custom 
of  Dinwiddie  housekeepers  to  remember  the  wife  of  the 
rector  who  had  plucked  off  his  surplice  for  the  Confed 
eracy,  and  among  the  older  generation  the  habit  still 
persisted,  like  all  other  links  that  bound  them  to  a  past 


HER  INHERITANCE  39 

which  they  cherished  the  more  passionately  because  it 
guarded  a  defeated  cause.  Like  the  soft  apologetic 
murmur  of  Mrs.  Pendleton's  voice,  which  was  meant  to 
distract  attention  rather  than  to  impart  information, 
this  impassioned  memory  of  the  thing  that  was  dead 
sweetened  the  less  romantic  fact  of  the  things  that  were 
living.  The  young  were  ignorant  of  it,  but  the  old 
knew.  Mrs.  Pendleton,  who  was  born  a  great  lady, 
remained  one  when  the  props  and  the  background  of  a 
great  lady  had  crumbled  around  her;  and  though  the 
part  she  filled  was  a  narrow  part  —  a  mere  niche  in  the 
world's  history  —  she  filled  it  superbly.  From  the 
dignity  of  possessions  she  had  passed  to  the  finer  dig 
nity  of  a  poverty  that  can  do  without.  All  the  intel 
lect  in  her  (for  she  was  not  clever)  had  been  transmuted 
into  character  by  this  fiery  passage  from  romance  into 
reality,  and  though  life  had  done  its  worst  with  her, 
some  fine  invincible  blade  in  the  depths  of  her  being  she 
had  never  surrendered.  She  would  have  gone  to  the 
stake  for  a  principle  as  cheerfully  as  she  had  descended 
from  her  aristocratic  niche  into  unceasing  poverty  and 
self-denial,  but  she  would  have  gone  wearing  garlands 
on  her  head  and  with  her  faint,  grave  smile,  in  which 
there  was  almost  every  quality  except  that  of  humour, 
touching  her  lips.  Her  hands,  which  were  once  lovely, 
were  now  knotted  and  worn;  for  she  had  toiled  when  it 
was  necessary,  though  she  had  toiled  always  with  the 
manner  of  a  lady.  Even  to-day  it  was  a  part  of  her 
triumph  that  this  dignity  was  so  vital  a  factor  in  her 
life  that  there  was  none  of  her  husband's  laughter  at 
circumstances  to  lighten  her  burden.  To  her  the  daily 
struggle  of  keeping  an  open  house  on  starvation  fare 
was  not  a  pathetic  comedy,  as  with  Gabriel,  but  a  des- 


40  VIRGINIA 

perately  smiling  tragedy.  What  to  Gabriel  had  been 
merely  the  discomfort  of  being  poor  when  everybody 
you  respected  was  poor  with  you,  had  been  to  his  wife 
the  slow  agony  of  crucifixion.  It  was  she,  not  he,  who 
had  lain  awake  to  wonder  where  to-morrow's  dinner 
could  be  got  without  begging;  it  was  she,  also,  who  had 
feared  to  doze  at  dawn  lest  she  should  oversleep  herself 
and  not  be  downstairs  in  time  to  scrub  the  floors  and 
the  furniture  before  the  neighbours  were  stirring.  Uncle 
Isam,  whose  knees  were  crippled  with  rheumatism,  and 
Docia,  who  had  a  "stitch"  in  her  side  whenever  she 
stooped,  were  the  only  servants  that  remained  with 
her,  and  the  nursing  of  these  was  usually  added  to  the 
pitiless  drudgery  of  her  winter.  But  the  bitter  edge 
to  all  her  suffering  was  the  feeling  which  her  husband 
spoke  of  in  the  pulpit  as  "false  pride"  —  the  feeling 
she  prayed  over  fervently  yet  without  avail  in  church 
every  Sunday  —  and  this  was  the  ignoble  terror  of 
being  seen  on  her  knees  in  her  old  black  calico  dress 
before  she  had  gone  upstairs  again,  washed  her  hands 
with  cornmeal,  powdered  her  face  with  her  pink  flannel 
starchbag,  and  descended  in  her  breakfast  gown  of 
black  cashmere  or  lawn,  with  a  net  scarf  tied  daintily 
around  her  thin  throat,  and  a  pair  of  exquisitely  darned 
lace  ruffles  hiding  her  wrists. 

As  she  sat  now,  smiling  and  calm,  at  the  head  of  her 
table,  there  was  no  hint  in  her  face  of  the  gnawing  anx 
iety  behind  the  delicate  blue-veined  hollows  in  her 
forehead.  "I  thought  John  Henry  would  come  to 
supper,"  she  observed,  while  her  hands  worked  lovingly 
among  the  old  white  and  gold  teacups  which  had 
belonged  to  her  mother,  "so  I  gathered  a  few  flowers." 

In  the  centre  of  the  table  there  was  a  handful  of 


HER  INHERITANCE  41 

garden  flowers  arranged,  with  a  generous  disregard  of 
colour,  in  a  cut-glass  bowl,  as  though  all  blossoms  were 
intended  by  their  Creator  to  go  peaceably  together. 
Only  on  formal  occasions  was  such  a  decoration  used 
on  the  table  of  the  rectory,  since  the  happiest  adorn 
ment  for  a  meal  was  supposed  to  be  a  bountiful  supply 
of  visible  viands;  but  the  hopelessly  mended  mats  had 
pierced  Mrs.  Pendleton's  heart,  and  the  cut-glass  bowl, 
like  her  endless  prattle,  was  but  a  pitiful  subterfuge. 

"Oh,  I  like  them!"  Virginia  had  started  to  answer, 
when  a  hearty  voice  called,  "May  I  come  in?"  from 
the  darkness,  and  a  large,  carelessly  dressed  young  man, 
with  an  amiable  and  rather  heavy  countenance,  entered 
the  hall  and  passed  on  into  the  dining-room.  In  reply 
to  Mrs.  Pendleton's  offer  of  tea,  he  answered  that  he 
had  stopped  at  the  Tread  wells'  on  his  way  up  from 
work.  "I  could  hardly  break  away  from  Oliver,"  he 
added,  "but  I  remembered  that  I'd  promised  Aunt 
Lucy  to  take  her  down  to  Tin  Pot  Alley  after  supper,  so 
I  made  a  bolt  while  he  was  convincing  me  that  it's 
better  to  be  poor  with  an  idea,  as  he  calls  it,  than  rich 
without  one."  Then  turning  to  Virginia,  he  asked 
suddenly:  "What's  the  matter,  little  cousin?  Been 
about  too  much  in  the  sun?" 

"Oh,  it's  only  the  rose  in  my  hair,"  responded 
Virginia,  and  she  felt  that  there  was  a  fierce  joy  in 
blushing  like  this  even  while  she  told  herself  that  she 
would  give  everything  she  possessed  if  she  could  only 
stop  it. 

"If  you  aren't  well,  you'd  better  not  go  with  us, 
Jinny,"  said  Mrs.  Pendleton.  "It  was  so  sweet  of 
John  Henry  to  remember  that  I'd  promised  to  take 
Aunt  Ailsey  some  of  the  bitters  we  used  to  make  be- 


42  VIRGINIA 

fore  the  war."  Everything  was  "so  sweet"  to  her, 
the  weather,  her  husband's  sermons,  the  little  trays  that 
came  continually  from  her  neighbours,  and  she  lived 
in  a  perpetual  state  of  thankfulness  for  favours  so 
insignificant  that  a  less  impressionable  soul  would  have 
accepted  them  as  undeserving  of  more  than  the  barest 
acknowledgment . 

"I  am  perfectly  well,"  insisted  Virginia,  a  little 
angry  with  John  Henry  because  he  had  been  the  first 
to  notice  her  blushes. 

Rising  hurriedly  from  the  table,  she  went  to  the  door 
and  stood  looking  out  into  the  spangled  dusk  under 
the  paulownias,  while  her  mother  wrapped  the  bottle  in 
a  piece  of  white  tissue  paper  and  remarked  with  an 
animation  which  served  to  hide  her  fatigue  from  the 
unobservant  eyes  of  her  husband,  that  a  walk  would  do 
her  good  on  such  a  "perfectly  lovely  night." 

Gabriel,  who  loved  her  as  much  as  a  man  can  love  a 
wife  who  has  sacrificed  herself  to  him  wisely  and  un 
wisely  for  nearly  thirty  years,  had  grown  so  used  to 
seeing  her  suffer  with  a  smile  that  he  had  drifted  at 
last  into  the  belief  that  it  was  the  only  form  of  activity 
she  really  enjoyed.  From  the  day  of  his  marriage  he 
had  never  been  able  to  deny  her  anything  she  had  set 
her  heart  upon  -  -  not  even  the  privilege  of  working 
herself  to  death  for  his  sake  when  the  opportunity 
offered. 

"Well,  well,  if  you  feel  like  it,  of  course  you  must  go, 
my  dear,"  he  replied.  "I'll  step  over  and  sit  a  minute 
with  Miss  Priscilla  while  you  are  away.  Never  could 
bear  the  house  without  you,  Lucy." 

While  this  protest  was  still  on  his  lips,  he  followed 
her  from  the  house,  and  turned  with  Virginia  and  John 


HER  INHERITANCE  43 

Henry  in  the  direction  of  the  Young  Ladies'  Academy. 
From  the  darkness  beyond  the  iron  gate  there  came 
the  soothing  flow  of  Miss  Priscilla's  voice  entertaining 
an  evening  caller,  and  when  the  rector  left  them,  as  if 
irresistibly  drawn  toward  the  honeyed  sound  of  gossip, 
Virginia  walked  on  in  silence  between  John  Henry  and 
her  mother.  At  each  corner  a  flickering  street  lamp 
burned  with  a  thin  yellow  flame,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
narrow  orbit  of  its  light  several  shining  moths  circled 
swiftly  like  white  moons  revolving  about  a  sun.  In 
the  centre  of  the  blocks,  where  the  darkness  was  broken 
only  by  small  flower-like  flakes  of  light  that  fell  in 
clusters  through  boughs  of  mulberry  or  linden  trees, 
there  was  the  sound  of  whispering  voices  and  of  rustling 
palm-leaf  fans  on  the  crowded  porches  behind  screens  of 
roses  or  honeysuckle.  Mrs.  Pendleton,  whose  instinct 
prompted  her  to  efface  herself  whenever  she  made  a 
third  at  the  meeting  of  maid  and  man  (even  though  the 
man  was  only  her  nephew  John  Henry),  began  to  talk 
at  last  after  waiting  modestly  for  her  daughter  to  begin 
the  conversation.  The  story  of  Aunt  Ailsey,  of  her 
great  age,  and  her  dictatorial  temper,  which  made  living 
with  other  servants  impossible  to  her,  started  valiantly 
on  its  familiar  road,  and  tripped  but  little  when  the 
poor  lady  realized  that  neither  John  Henry  nor  Vir 
ginia  was  listening.  She  was  so  used  to  talking  for  the 
sake  of  the  sound  she  made  rather  than  the  impression 
she  produced  that  her  silvery  ripple  had  become  almost 
as  lacking  in  self -consciousness  as  the  song  of  a  canary. 
But  Virginia,  walking  so  quietly  at  her  side,  was  in 
habiting  at  the  moment  a  separate  universe  —  a  uni 
verse  smelling  of  honeysuckle  and  filled  with  starry 
pathways  to  happiness.  In  this  universe  Aunt  Ailsey 


44  VIRGINIA 

and  her  peculiarities,  her  mother's  innocent  prattle, 
and  the  solid  body  of  John  Henry  touching  her  arm, 
were  all  as  remote  and  trivial  as  the  night  moths 
circling  around  the  lamps.  Looking  at  John  Henry 
from  under  her  lowered  lashes,  she  felt  a  sudden  pity 
for  him  because  he  was  so  far  —  so  very  far  indeed 
from  being  the  right  man.  She  saw  him  too  clearly 
as  he  was  —  he  stood  before  her  in  all  the  hard  bright 
ness  of  the  reality,  and  first  love,  like  beauty,  de 
pends  less  upon  the  truth  of  an  outline  than  it  does 
upon  the  softening  quality  of  an  atmosphere.  There 
was  no  mystery  for  her  in  the  simple  fact  of  his  being. 
There  was  nothing  left  to  discover  about  his  great 
stature,  his  excellent  heart,  and  his  safe,  slow  mind  that 
had  been  compelled  to  forego  even  the  sort  of  education 
she  had  derived  from  Miss  Priscilla.  She  knew  that 
he  had  left  school  at  the  age  of  eight  in  order  to  become 
the  support  of  a  widowed  mother,  and  she  was  pitifully 
aware  of  the  tireless  efforts  he  had  made  after  reaching 
manhood  to  remedy  his  ignorance  of  the  elementary 
studies  he  had  missed.  Never  had  she  heard  a  com 
plaint  from  him,  never  a  regret  for  the  sacrifice,  never 
so  much  as  an  idle  wonder  why  it  should  have  been 
necessary.  If  the  texture  of  his  soul  was  not  finely 
wrought,  the  proportions  of  it  were  heroic.  In  him 
the  Pendleton  idealism  had  left  the  skies  and  been 
transmuted  into  the  common  substance  of  clay.  He 
was  of  a  practical  bent  of  mind  and  had  developed  a 
talent  for  his  branch  of  business,  which,  to  the  bitter 
humiliation  of  his  mother,  was  that  of  hardware,  with  a 
successful  specialty  in  bathtubs.  Until  to-day  Virginia 
had  always  believed  that  John  Henry  interested  her, 
but  now  she  wondered  how  she  had  ever  spent  so  many 


HER  INHERITANCE  45 

hours  listening  to  his  talk  about  business.  And  with 
the  thought  her  whole  existence  appeared  to  her  as  dull 
and  commonplace  as  those  hours.  A  single  instant 
of  experience  seemed  longer  to  her  than  all  the  years  she 
had  lived,  and  this  instant  had  drained  the  colour  and 
the  sweetness  from  the  rest  of  life.  The  shape  of  her 
universe  had  trembled  suddenly  and  altered.  Dimly 
she  was  beginning  to  realize  that  sensation,  not  time, 
is  the  true  measure  of  life.  Nothing  and  everything 
had  happened  to  her  since  yesterday. 

As  they  turned  into  Short  Market  Street,  Mrs. 
Pendleton's  voice  trailed  off  at  last  into  silence,  and  she 
did  not  speak  again  while  they  passed  hurriedly  be 
tween  the  crumbling  houses  and  the  dilapidated  shops 
which  rose  darkly  on  either  side  of  the  narrow  cinder- 
strewn  walks.  The  scent  of  honeysuckle  did  not  reach 
here,  and  when  they  stopped  presently  at  the  beginning 
of  Tin  Pot  Alley,  there  floated  out  to  them  the  sharp 
acrid  odour  of  huddled  negroes.  In  these  squalid 
alleys,  where  the  lamps  burned  at  longer  distances,  the 
more  primitive  forms  of  life  appeared  to  swarm  like 
distorted  images  under  the  transparent  civilization  of 
the  town.  The  sound  of  banjo  strumming  came 
faintly  from  the  dimness  beyond,  while  at  their  feet  the 
Problem  of  the  South  sprawled  innocently  amid  tomato 
cans  and  rotting  cabbage  leaves. 

"Wait  here  just  a  minute  and  I'll  run  up  and  speak 
to  Aunt  Ailsey,"  remarked  Mrs.  Pendleton  with  the 
dignity  of  a  soul  that  is  superior  to  smells;  and  without 
noticing  her  daughter's  reproachful  nod  of  acquies 
cence,  she  entered  the  alley  and  disappeared  through 
the  doorway  of  the  nearest  hovel.  A  minute  later  her 
serene  face  looked  down  at  them  over  a  patchwork  quilt 


46  VIRGINIA 

which  hung  airing  at  half  length  from  the  window  above. 
"But  this  is  not  life  —  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  life," 
thought  Virginia,  while  the  Pendleton  blood  in  her 
rose  in  a  fierce  rebellion  against  all  that  was  ugly  and 
sordid  in  existence.  Then  her  mother's  tread  was 
heard  descending  the  short  flight  of  steps,  and  the  sen 
sation  vanished  as  quickly  and  as  inexplicably  as  it  had 
come. 

"I  tried  not  to  keep  you  waiting,  dear,"  said  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  hastening  toward  them  while  she  fanned 
herself  rapidly  with  the  small  black  fan  she  carried. 
Her  face  looked  tired  and  worn,  and  before  moving  on, 
she  paused  a  moment  and  held  her  hand  to  her  thin 
fluttering  breast,  while  deep  bluish  circles  appeared  to 
start  out  under  the  expression  of  pathetic  cheerfulness 
in  her  eyes.  This  pathetic  cheerfulness,  so  character 
istic  of  the  women  of  her  generation,  was  the  first 
thing,  perhaps,  that  a  stranger  would  have  noticed 
about  her  face;  yet  it  was  a  trait  which  neither  her 
husband  nor  her  child  had  ever  observed.  There  was 
a  fine  moisture  on  her  forehead,  and  this  added  so 
greatly  to  the  natural  transparency  of  her  features  that, 
standing  there  in  the  wan  light,  she  might  have  been 
mistaken  for  the  phantom  of  her  daughter's  vivid  flesh 
and  blood  beauty.  "I  wonder  if  you  would  mind  going 
on  to  Bolingbroke  Street,  so  I  may  speak  to  Belinda 
Treadwell  a  minute?"  she  asked,  as  soon  as  she  had 
recovered  her  breath.  "I  want  to  find  out  if  she  has 
engaged  Miss  Willy  Whitlow  for  the  whole  week,  or 
if  there  is  any  use  my  sending  a  message  to  her  over  in 
Botetourt.  If  she  doesn't  begin  at  once,  Jinny,  you 
won't  have  a  dress  to  wear  to  Abby  Goode's  party." 

Virginia's  heart  gave  a  single  bound  of  joy  and  lay 


HER  INHERITANCE  47 

quiet.  Not  for  worlds  would  she  have  asked  to  go  to 
the  Treadwells',  yet  ever  since  they  had  started,  she 
had  longed  unceasingly  to  have  her  mother  suggest  it. 
The  very  stars,  she  felt,  had  worked  together  to  bring 
about  her  desire. 

"But  aren't  you  tired,  mother?  It  really  doesn't 
matter  about  my  dress,"  she  murmured,  for  it  was  not 
in  vain  that  she  had  wrested  a  diploma  for  deportment 
from  Miss  Priscilla. 

"Why  can't  I  take  the  message  for  you,  Aunt  Lucy? 
You  look  tired  to  death,"  urged  John  Henry. 

"Oh,  I  shan't  mind  the  walk  as  soon  as  we  get  out 
into  the  breeze,"  replied  Mrs.  Pendleton.  "It's  a 
lovely  night,  only  a  little  close  in  this  alley."  And  as 
she  spoke  she  looked  gently  down  on  the  Problem  of  the 
South  as  the  Southern  woman  had  looked  down  on  it 
for  generations  and  would  continue  to  look  down  on  it 
for  generations  still  to  come  —  without  seeing  that  it 
was  a  problem. 

"Well,  it's  good  to  get  a  breath  of  air,  anyway!" 
exclaimed  John  Henry  with  fervour,  when  they  had 
passed  out  of  the  alley  into  the  lighted  street.  Around 
them  the  town  seemed  to  beat  with  a  single  heart,  as  if 
it  waited,  like  Virginia,  in  breathless  suspense  for  some 
secret  that  must  come  out  of  the  darkness.  Sometimes 
the  sidewalks  over  which  they  passed  were  of  flag 
stones,  sometimes  they  were  of  gravel  or  of  strewn 
cinders.  Now  and  then  an  old  stone  house,  which  had 
once  sheltered  crinoline  and  lace  ruffles,  or  had  served 
as  a  trading  station  with  the  Indians  before  Dinwiddie 
had  become  a  city,  would  loom  between  two  small  shops 
where  the  owners,  coatless  and  covered  with  sweat,  were 
selling  flat  beer  to  jaded  and  miserable  customers.  Up 


48  VIRGINIA 

Bolingbroke  Street  a  faint  breeze  blew,  lifting  the  moist 
satin-like  hair  on  Mrs.  Pendleton's  forehead.  Already 
its  ancient  dignity  had  deserted  the  quarter  in  which 
the  Treadwells  lived,  and  it  had  begun  to  wear  a  for 
saken  and  injured  look,  as  though  it  resented  the  deg 
radation  of  commerce  into  which  it  had  descended. 

"I  can't  understand  why  Cyrus  Treadwell  doesn't 
move  over  to  Sycamore  Street,"  remarked  John  Henry 
after  a  moment  of  reflection  in  which  he  had  appeared 
to  weigh  this  simple  sentence  with  scrupulous  exact 
ness.  "He's  rich  enough,  I  suppose,  to  buy  anything 
he  wants." 

"I've  heard  Susan  say  that  it  was  her  mother's  old 
home  and  she  didn't  care  to  leave  it,"  said  Mrs. 
Pendleton. 

"I  don't  believe  it's  that  a  bit,"  broke  in  Virginia 
with  characteristic  impulsiveness.  "The  only  reason 
is  that  Mr.  Treadwell  is  stingy.  With  all  his  money,  I 
know  Mrs.  Treadwell  and  Susan  hardly  ever  have  a 
dollar  they  can  spend  on  themselves." 

Though  she  spoke  with  her  accustomed  energy,  she 
was  conscious  all  the  time  that  the  words  she  uttered 
were  not  the  ones  in  her  thoughts.  What  did  Cyrus 
Treadwell's  stinginess  matter  when  his  only  relation  to 
life  consisted  in  his  being  the  uncle  of  Oliver?  It  was 
as  if  a  single  shape  moved  alive  through  a  universe 
peopled  with  shadows.  Only  a  borrowed  radiance 
attached  itself  now  to  the  persons  and  objects  that  had 
illumined  the  world  for  her  yesterday.  Yet  she  ap 
proached  the  crisis  of  her  life  so  silently  that  those 
around  her  did  not  recognize  it  beneath  the  cover  of 
ordinary  circumstances.  Like  most  great  moments  it 
had  come  unheralded;  and  though  the  rustling  of  it$ 


HER  INHERITANCE  49 

wings  filled  her  soul,  neither  her  mother  nor  John 
Henry  heard  a  stir  in  the  quiet  air  that  surrounded 
them.  Walking  between  the  two  who  loved  her,  she 
felt  that  she  was  separated  from  them  both  by  an 
eternity  of  experience. 

There  were  several  blocks  of  Bolingbroke  Street  to 
walk  before  the  Treadwells'  house  was  reached,  and  as 
they  sauntered  slowly  past  decayed  dwellings,  Virginia's 
imagination  ran  joyously  ahead  of  her  to  the  meeting. 
Would  it  happen  this  time  as  it  had  happened  before 
when  he  looked  at  her  that  something  would  pass  be 
tween  them  which  would  make  her  feel  that  she  be 
longed  to  him?  So  little  resistance  did  she  offer  to 
the  purpose  of  Life  that  she  seemed  to  have  existed 
from  the  beginning  merely  as  an  exquisite  medium  for 
a  single  emotion.  It  was  as  if  the  dreams  of  all  the 
dead  women  of  her  race,  who  had  lived  only  in  loving, 
were  concentrated  into  a  single  shining  centre  of  bliss 
—  for  the  accumulated  vibrations  of  centuries  were  in 
her  soul  when  she  trembled  for  the  first  time  beneath 
the  eyes  of  a  lover.  And  yet  all  this  blissful  violence 
was  powerless  to  change  the  most  insignificant  external 
fact  in  the  universe.  Though  it  was  the  greatest  thing 
that  could  ever  happen  to  her,  it  was  nothing  to  the 
other  twenty-one  thousand  human  beings  among  whom 
she  lived ;  it  left  no  mark  upon  that  procession  of  unim 
portant  details  which  they  called  life. 

They  were  in  sight  of  the  small  old-fashioned  brick 
house  of  the  Treadwells,  with  its  narrow  windows  set 
discreetly  between  outside  shutters,  and  she  saw  that 
the  little  marble  porch  was  deserted  except  for  the  two 
pink  oleander  trees,  which  stood  in  green  tubs  on  either 
side  of  the  curved  iron  railings.  A  minute  later  John 


50  VIRGINIA 

Henry's  imperative  ring  brought  a  young  coloured  maid 
to  the  door,  and  Virginia,  who  had  lingered  on  the 
pavement,  heard  almost  immediately  an  effusive  duet 
from  her  mother  and  Mrs.  Tread  well. 

"Oh,  do  come  in,  Lucy,  just  for  a  minute!" 

"I  can't  possibly,  my  dear;  I  only  wanted  to  ask  you 
if  you  have  engaged  Miss  Willy  Whitlow  for  the  entire 
week  or  if  you  could  let  me  have  her  for  Friday  and 
Saturday?  Jinny  hasn't  a  rag  to  wear  to  Abby 
Goode's  lawn  party  and  I  don't  know  anybody  who 
does  quite  so  well  for  her  as  poor  Miss  Willy.  Oh, 
that's  so  sweet  of  you!  I  can't  thank  you  enough! 
And  you'll  tell  her  without  my  sending  all  the  way  over 
to  Botetourt!" 

By  this  time  Susan  had  joined  Virginia  on  the  side 
walk,  and  the  liquid  honey  of  Mrs.  Pendleton's  voice 
dropped  softly  into  indistinctness. 

"Oh,  Jinny,  if  I'd  only  known  you  were  coming!" 
said  Susan.  "Oliver  wanted  me  to  take  him  to  see 
you,  and  when  I  couldn't,  he  went  over  to  call  on 
Abby." 

So  this  was  the  end  of  her  walk  winged  with  expect 
ancy  !  A  disappointment  as  sharp  as  her  joy  had  been 
pierced  her  through  as  she  stood  there  smiling  into 
Susan's  discomfited  face.  With  the  tragic  power  of 
youth  to  create  its  own  torment,  she  told  herself  that 
life  could  never  be  the  same  after  this  first  taste  of  its 
bitterness. 


CHAPTER  III 

FIRST   LOVE 

THE  next  morning,  so  indestructible  is  the  hap 
piness  of  youth,  she  awoke  with  her  hope  as  fresh  as 
if  it  had  not  been  blighted  the  evening  before.  As 
she  lay  in  bed,  with  her  loosened  hair  making  a  cloud 
over  the  pillows,  and  her  eyes  shining  like  blue  flowers 
in  the  band  of  sunlight  that  fell  through  the  dormer- 
window,  she  quivered  to  the  early  sweetness  of  honey 
suckle  as  though  it  were  the  charmed  sweetness  of 
love  of  which  she  had  dreamed  in  the  night.  She  was 
only  one  of  the  many  millions  of  women  who  were 
awaking  at  the  same  hour  to  the  same  miracle  of  Na 
ture,  yet  she  might  have  been  the  first  woman  seeking 
the  first  man  through  the  vastness  and  the  mystery  of 
an  uninhabited  earth.  Impossible  to  believe  that  an 
experience  so  wonderful  was  as  common  as  the  bursting 
of  the  spring  buds  or  the  humming  of  the  thirsty  bees 
around  the  honeysuckle  arbour! 

Slipping  out  of  bed,  she  threw  her  dressing-gown  over 
her  shoulders,  and  kneeling  beside  the  window,  drank 
in  the  flower-scented  air  of  the  May  morning.  During 
the  night,  the  paulownia  trees  had  shed  a  rain  of  violet 
blossoms  over  the  wet  grass,  where  little  wings  of  sun 
shine,  like  golden  moths,  hovered  above  them.  Be 
yond  the  border  of  lilies-of-the-valley  she  saw  the 
squat  pinkish  tower  of  the  church,  and  beneath  it,  in 

51 


52  VIRGINIA 

the  narrow  churchyard,  rose  the  gleaming  shaft  above 
the  grave  of  the  Confederate  soldier.  On  her  right,  in 
the  centre  of  the  crooked  path,  three  negro  infants  were 
prodding  earnestly  at  roots  of  wire-grass  and  dandelion; 
and  brushing  carelessly  their  huddled  figures,  her  gaze 
descended  the  twelve  steps  of  the  almost  obliterated 
terrace,  and  followed  the  steep  street  down  which  a 
mulatto  vegetable  vendor  was  urging  his  slow-footed 
mule. 

A  wave  of  joy  rose  in  her  breast,  and  she  felt  that  her 
heart  melted  in  gratitude  for  the  divine  beauty  of  life. 
The  world  showed  to  her  as  a  place  filled  with  shining 
vistas  of  happiness,  and  at  the  end  of  each  of  these 
vistas  there  awaited  the  unknown  enchanting  thing 
which  she  called  in  her  thoughts  "the  future."  The 
fact  that  it  was  the  same  world  in  which  Miss  Priscilla 
and  her  mother  lived  their  narrow  and  prosaic  lives 
did  not  alter  by  a  breath  her  unshakable  conviction 
that  she  herself  was  predestined  for  something  more 
wonderful  than  they  had  ever  dreamed  of.  "He  may 
come  this  evening!"  she  thought,  and  immediately  the 
light  of  magic  suffused  the  room,  the  street  outside, 
and  every  scarred  roof  in  Dinwiddie. 

At  the  head  of  her  bed,  wedged  in  between  the  candle 
stand  and  the  window,  there  was  a  cheap  little  book 
case  of  walnut  which  contained  the  only  volumes  she 
had  ever  been  permitted  to  own  —  the  poems  of 
Mrs.  Hemans  and  of  Adelaide  Anne  Procter,  a  carefully 
expurgated  edition  of  Shakespeare,  with  an  inscription 
in  the  rector's  handwriting  on  the  flyleaf;  Miss  Strick 
land's  "Lives  of  the  Queens  of  England";  and  several 
works  of  fiction  belonging  to  the  class  which  Mrs. 
Pendleton  vaguely  characterized  as  "sweet  stories.'' 


FIRST  LOVE  53 

Among  the  more  prominent  of  these  were  "  Thaddeus 
of  Warsaw,"  a  complete  set  of  Miss  Yonge's  novels, 
with  a  conspicuously  tear-stained  volume  of  "The  Heir 
of  Redclyffe,"  and  a  romance  or  two  by  obscure  but  in 
nocuous  authors.  That  any  book  which  told,  however 
mildly,  the  truth  about  life  should  have  entered  their 
daughter's  bedroom  would  have  seemed  little  short  of 
profanation  to  both  the  rector  and  Mrs.  Pendleton. 
The  sacred  shelves  of  that  bookcase  (which  had  been 
ceremoniously  presented  to  her  on  her  fourteenth  birth 
day)  had  never  suffered  the  contaminating  presence  of 
realism.  The  solitary  purpose  of  art  was,  in  Mrs.  Pen- 
dleton's  eyes,  to  be  "sweet,"  and  she  scrupulously 
judged  all  literature  by  its  success  or  failure  in  this 
particular  quality.  It  seemed  to  her  as  wholesome  to 
feed  her  daughter's  growing  fancy  on  an  imaginary  line 
of  pious  heroes,  as  it  appeared  to  her  moral  to  screen 
her  from  all  suspicion  of  the  existence  of  immorality. 
She  did  not  honestly  believe  that  any  living  man  re 
sembled  the  "Heir  of  Redclyffe,"  any  more  than  she 
believed  that  the  path  of  self-sacrifice  leads  inevit 
ably  to  happiness ;  but  there  was  no  doubt  in  her  mind 
that  she  advanced  the  cause  of  righteousness  when  she 
taught  these  sanctified  fallacies  to  Virginia. 

As  she  rose  from  her  knees,  Virginia  glanced  at  her 
white  dress,  which  was  too  crumpled  for  her  to  wear 
again  before  it  was  smoothed,  and  thought  regretfully 
of  Aunt  Docia's  heart,  which  invariably  gave  warning 
whenever  there  was  extra  work  to  be  done.  "I  shall 
have  to  wear  either  my  blue  lawn  or  my  green  organdie 
this  evening,"  she  thought.  "I  wish  I  could  have  the 
sleeves  changed.  I  wonder  if  mother  could  run  a  tuck 
in  themf  " 


54  VIRGINIA 

It  did  not  occur  to  her  that  she  might  smooth  the 
dress  herself,  because  she  knew  that  the  iron  would 
be  wrested  from  her  by  her  mother's  hands,  which  were 
so  knotted  and  worn  that  tears  came  to  Virginia's 
eyes  when  she  looked  at  them.  She  let  her  mother 
slave  over  her  because  she  had  been  born  into  a  world 
where  the  slaving  of  mothers  was  a  part  of  the 
natural  order,  and  she  had  not  as  yet  become  inde 
pendent  enough  to  question  the  morality  of  the  com 
monplace.  At  any  minute  she  would  gladly  have 
worked,  too,  but  the  phrase  "spare  Virginia"  had  been 
uttered  so  often  in  her  hearing  that  it  had  acquired  at 
last  almost  a  religious  significance.  To  have  been 
forced  to  train  her  daughter  in  any  profitable  occupa 
tion  which  might  have  lifted  her  out  of  the  class  of 
unskilled  labour  in  which  indigent  gentlewomen  by 
right  belonged,  would  have  been  the  final  dregs  of 
humiliation  in  Mrs.  Pendleton's  cup.  On  one  of  Aunt 
Docia's  bad  days,  when  Jinny  had  begged  to  be 
allowed  to  do  part  of  the  washing,  she  had  met  an 
almost  passionate  refusal  from  her  mother.  "It  will 
be  time  enough  to  spoil  your  hands  after  you  are  mar 
ried,  darling!"  And  again,  "Don't  do  that  rough 
sewing,  Jinny.  Give  it  to  me."  From  the  cradle  she 
had  borne  her  part  in  this  racial  custom  of  the  sacrifice 
of  generation  to  generation  —  of  the  perpetual  immo 
lation  of  age  on  the  flowery  altars  of  youth.  Like  most 
customs  in  which  we  are  nurtured,  it  had  seemed  nat 
ural  and  pleasant  enough  until  she  had  watched  the 
hollows  deepen  in  her  mother's  temples  and  the  tire 
less  knotted  hands  stumble  at  their  work.  Then  a 
pang  had  seized  her  and  she  had  pleaded  earnestly  to 
be  permitted  to  help. 


FIRST  LOVE  55 

"If  you  only  knew  how  unhappy  it  makes  me  to  see 
you  ruining  your  pretty  fingers,  Jinny.  My  child,  the 
one  comfort  I  have  is  the  thought  that  I  am  sparing 
you." 

Sparing  her!  Always  that  from  the  first!  Even 
Gabriel  chimed  in  when  it  became  a  matter  of  Jinny. 
"Let  me  wash  the  dishes,  Lucy,"  he  would  implore. 
"What?  Will  you  trust  me  with  other  people's  souls, 
but  not  with  your  china?" 

"It's  not  a  man's  work,  Mr.  Pendleton.  What 
would  the  neighbours  think?" 

"They  would  think,  I  hope,  my  dear,  that  I  was  doing 
my  duty." 

"But  it  would  not  be  dignified  for  a  clergyman.  No, 
I  cannot  bear  the  sight  of  you  with  a  dishcloth." 

In  the  end  she  invariably  had  her  way  with  them, 
for  she  was  the  strongest.  Jinny  must  be  spared,  and 
Gabriel  must  do  nothing  undignified.  About  herself 
it  made  no  difference  unless  the  neighbours  were  looking; 
she  had  not  thought  of  herself,  except  in  the  indomitable 
failing  of  her  "false  pride,"  since  her  marriage,  which 
had  taken  place  in  her  twentieth  year.  A  clergy 
man's  wife  might  do  menial  tasks  in  secret,  and  nobody 
minded,  but  they  were  not  for  a  clergyman. 

For  a  minute,  while  she  was  dressing,  Virginia 
thought  of  these  things  —  of  how  hard  life  had  been  to 
her  mother,  of  how  pretty  she  must  have  been  in  her 
youth.  What  she  did  not  think  of  was  that  her  mother, 
like  herself,  was  but  one  of  the  endless  procession  of 
women  who  pass  perpetually  from  the  sphere  of  pleas 
ure  into  the  sphere  of  service.  It  was  as  impossible  for 
her  to  picture  her  mother  as  a  girl  of  twenty  as  it  was  for 
her  to  imagine  herself  ever  becoming  a  woman  of  fifty. 


56  VIRGINIA 

When  she  had  finished  dressing  she  closed  the  door 
softly  after  her  as  if  she  were  afraid  of  disturbing  the 
silence,  and  ran  downstairs  to  the  dining-room,  where 
the  rector  and  Mrs.  Pendleton  greeted  her  with  sub 
dued  murmurs  of  joy. 

"I  was  afraid  I'd  miss  you,  daughter,"  from  the 
rector,  as  he  drew  her  chair  nearer. 

"I  was  just  going  to  carry  up  your  tray,  Jinny,"  from 
her  mother.  "I  kept  a  nice  breast  of  chicken  for  you 
which  one  of  the  neighbours  sent  me." 

"I'd  so  much  rather  you'd  eat  it,  mother,"  protested 
Jinny,  on  the  point  of  tears. 

"But  I  couldn't,  darling,  I  really  couldn't  manage 
it.  A  cup  of  coffee  and  a  bit  of  toast  is  all  I  can  possi 
bly  stand  in  the  morning.  I  was  up  early,  for  Docia  was 
threatened  with  one  of  her  heart  attacks,  and  it  always 
gives  me  a  little  headache  to  miss  my  morning  nap." 

"Then  you  can't  go  to  market,  Lucy;  it  is  out  of  the 
question,"  insisted  the  rector.  "After  thirty  years  you 
might  as  well  make  up  your  mind  to  trust  me,  my  dear." 

"But  the  last  time  you  went  you  gave  away  our 
shoulder  of  lamb  to  a  beggar,"  replied  his  wife,  and  she 
hastened  to  add  tenderly,  lest  he  should  accept  the 
remark  as  a  reproof,  "it's  sweet  of  you,  dearest,  but  a 
little  walk  will  be  good  for  my  head  if  I  am  careful  to 
keep  on  the  shady  side  of  the  street.  I  can  easily  find 
a  boy  to  bring  home  the  things,  and  I  am  sure  it  won't 
hurt  me  a  bit." 

"Why  can't  I  go,  mother?"  implored  Virginia. 
"Susan  always  markets  for  Mrs.  Treadwell."  And 
she  felt  that  even  the  task  of  marketing  was  irradiated 
by  this  inner  glow  which  had  changed  the  common 
aspect  of  life. 


FIRST  LOVE  57 

"Oh,  Jinny,  you  know  how  you  hate  to  feel  the 
chickens,  and  one  can  never  tell  how  plump  they  are 
by  the  feathers." 

"Well,  I'll  feel  them,  mother,  if  you'll  let  me  try." 

"No,  darling,  but  you  may  go  with  me  and  carry  my 
sunshade.  I'm  so  sorry  Docia  can't  smooth  your  dress. 
Was  it  much  crumpled?" 

"Oh,  dreadfully!  And  I  did  so  want  to  wear  it 
this  evening.  Do  you  think  Aunt  Docia  could  show  me 
how  to  iron?" 

Docia,  who  stood  like  an  ebony  image  of  Bellona 
behind  her  mistress's  chair,  waving  a  variegated  tissue 
paper  fly  screen  over  the  coffee-urn,  was  heard  to  think 
aloud  that  "dish  yer  stitch  ain'  helt  up  er  blessed  min 
ute  sence  befo'  daylight."  Not  unnaturally,  perhaps, 
since  she  was  the  most  prominent  figure  in  her  own 
vision  of  the  universe,  she  had  come  at  last  to  regard  her 
recurrent  "stitch"  as  an  event  of  greater  consequence 
than  Virginia's  appearance  in  immaculate  white  muslin. 
An  uncertain  heart  combined  with  a  certain  temper  had 
elevated  her  from  a  servile  position  to  one  of  absolute 
autocracy  in  the  household.  Everybody  feared  her, 
so  nobody  had  ever  dared  ask  her  to  leave.  As  she 
had  rebelled  long  ago  against  the  badge  of  a  cap  and  an 
apron,  she  appeared  in  the  dining-room  clad  in  garments 
of  various  hues,  and  her  dress  on  this  particular  morn 
ing  was  a  purple  calico  crowned  majestically  by  a  pink 
cotton  turban.  There  was  a  tradition  still  afloat  that 
Docia  had  been  an  excellent  servant  before  the  war; 
but  this  amiable  superstition  had,  perhaps,  as  much 
reason  to  support  it  as  had  Gabriel's  innocent  convic 
tion  that  there  were  no  faithless  husbands  when  there 
were  no  divorces. 


58  VIRGINIA 

"I'm  afraid  Docia  can't  do  it,"  sighed  Mrs.  Pen- 
dleton,  for  her  ears  had  caught  the  faint  thunder  of  the 
war  goddess  behind  her  chair,  and  her  soul,  which  feared 
neither  armies  nor  adversities,  trembled  before  her 
former  slaves.  "But  it  won't  take  me  a  minute  if 
you'll  have  it  ready  right  after  dinner." 

"Oh,  mother,  of  course  I  couldn't  let  you  for  any 
thing.  I  only  thought  Aunt  Docia  might  be  able  to 
teach  me  how  to  iron." 

At  this,  Docia  muttered  audibly  that  she  "ain'  got 
no  time  ter  be  sho'in'  nobody  nuttin'." 

"There,  now,  Docia,  you  mustn't  lose  your  temper," 
observed  Gabriel  as  he  rose  from  his  chair.  It  was  at 
such  moments  that  the  remembered  joys  of  slavery  left 
a  bitter  after  taste  on  his  lips.  Clearly  it  was  impos 
sible  to  turn  into  the  streets  a  servant  who  had  once 
belonged  to  you! 

When  they  were  in  the  hall  together,  Mrs.  Pendleton 
whispered  nervously  to  her  husband  that  it  must  be 
"poor  Docia's  heart  that  made  her  so  disagreeable 
and  that  she  would  feel  better  to-morrow." 

"Wouldn't  it  be  possible,  my  dear?"  inquired  the 
rector  in  his  pulpit  manner,  to  which  his  wife's  only 
answer  was  a  startled  "Sh-sh-ush." 

An  hour  later  the  door  of  Gabriel's  study  opened 
softly,  and  Mrs.  Pendleton  entered  with  the  humble  and 
apologetic  manner  in  which  she  always  intruded  upon 
her  husband's  pursuits.  There  was  an  accepted  theory 
in  the  family,  shared  even  by  Uncle  Isam  and  Aunt 
Docia,  that  whenever  Gabriel  was  left  alone  for  an 
instant,  his  thoughts  naturally  deflected  into  spiritual 
paths.  In  the  early  days  of  his  marriage  he  had  tried 
honestly  to  live  up  to  this  exalted  idea  of  his  character; 


FIRST  LOVE  59 

then  finding  the  effort  beyond  him,  and  being  a  man 
with  an  innate  detestation  of  hypocrisy,  he  had  ear 
nestly  endeavoured  to  disabuse  his  wife's  imagination 
of  the  mistaken  belief  in  his  divinity.  But  a  notion 
once  firmly  fixed  in  Mrs.  Pendleton's  mind  might  as 
well  have  been  embedded  in  rock.  By  virtue  of  that 
gentle  obstinacy  which  enabled  her  to  believe  in  an 
illusion  the  more  intensely  because  it  had  vanished,  she 
had  triumphed  not  only  over  circumstances,  but  over 
truth  itself.  By  virtue  of  this  quality,  she  had  created 
the  world  in  which  she  moved  and  had  wrought  beauty 
out  of  chaos. 

"Are  you  busy  with  your  sermon,  dear?"  she  asked, 
pausing  in  the  doorway,  and  gazing  reverently  at  her 
husband  over  the  small  black  silk  bag  she  carried.  Like 
the  other  women  of  Dinwiddie  who  had  lost  rela 
tives  by  the  war,  she  had  never  laid  aside  her  mourn 
ing  since  the  surrender;  and  the  frame  of  crape  to  her 
face  gave  her  the  pensive  look  of  one  who  has  stepped 
out  of  the  pageant  of  life  into  the  sacred  shadows  of 
memory, 

"No,  no,  Lucy,  I'm  ready  to  start  out  with  you," 
replied  the  rector  apologetically,  putting  a  box  of  fishing 
tackle  he  had  been  sorting  back  into  the  drawer  of  his 
desk.  He  was  as  fond  as  a  child  of  a  day's  sport,  and 
never  quite  so  happy  as  when  he  set  out  with  his  rod 
and  an  old  tomato  can  filled  with  worms,  which  he  had 
dug  out  of  the  back  garden,  in  his  hands;  but  owing  to 
the  many  calls  upon  him  and  his  wife's  conception  of 
his  clerical  dignity,  he  was  seldom  able  to  gratify  his 
natural  tastes. 

"Oh,  father,  please  hurry!"  called  Virginia  from  the 
porch,  and  rising  obediently,  he  followed  Mrs.  Pendle- 


60  VIRGINIA 

ton  through  the  hall  and  out  into  the  May  sunshine, 
where  the  little  negroes  stopped  an  excited  chase  of  a 
black  and  orange  butterfly  to  return  doggedly  to  their 
weeding. 

"Are  you  sure  you  wouldn't  rather  I'd  go  to  market, 
Lucy?" 

"Quite  sure,  dear,"  replied  his  wife,  sniffing  the  scent 
of  lilies-of-the-valley  with  her  delicate,  slightly  pinched 
nostrils.  "I  thought  you  were  going  to  see  Mr.  Tread- 
well  about  putting  John  Henry  into  the  bank,"  she 
added.  "It  is  such  a  pity  to  keep  the  poor  boy  selling 
bathtubs.  His  mother  felt  it  so  terribly." 

"Ah,  so  I  was  —  so  I  was,"  reflected  Gabriel,  who, 
though  both  of  them  would  have  been  indignant  at  the 
suggestion,  was  as  putty  in  the  hands  of  his  wife. 
"Well,  I'll  look  into  the  bank  on  Cyrus  after  I've  paid 
my  sick  calls." 

With  that  they  parted,  Gabriel  going  on  to  visit  a 
bedridden  widow  in  the  Old  Ladies'  Home,  while  Mrs. 
Pendleton  and  Virginia  turned  down  a  cross  street  that 
led  toward  the  market.  At  every  corner,  it  seemed  to 
Virginia,  middle-aged  ladies,  stout  or  thin,  wearing 
crape  veils  and  holding  small  black  silk  bags  in  their 
hands,  sprang  out  of  the  shadows  of  mulberry  trees, 
and  barred  their  leisurely  progress.  And  though  noth 
ing  had  happened  in  Dinwiddie  since  the  war,  and  Mrs. 
Pendleton  had  seen  many  of  these  ladies  the  day  before, 
she  stopped  for  a  sympathetic  chat  with  each  one  of 
them,  while  Virginia,  standing  a  little  apart,  patiently 
prodded  the  cinders  of  the  walk  with  the  end  of  her 
sunshade.  All  her  life  the  girl  had  been  taught  to 
regard  time  as  the  thing  of  least  importance  in  the  uni 
verse;  but  occasionally,  while  she  listened  in  silence  to 


FIRST  LOVE  61 

the  liquid  murmur  of  her  mother's  voice,  she  wondered 
vaguely  how  the  day's  work  was  ever  finished  in  Din- 
widdie.  The  story  of  Docia's  impertinence  wras  told 
and  retold  a  dozen  times  before  they  reached  the 
market.  "And  you  really  mean  that  you  can't  get  rid 
of  her?  Why,  my  dear  Lucy,  I  wouldn't  stand  it  a  day ! 
Now,  there  was  my  Mandy.  Such  an  excellent  servant 
until  she  got  her  head  turned  -  This  from  Mrs. 

Tom  Peachey,  an  energetic  little  woman,  with  a  rosy 
face  and  a  straight  gray  "bang"  cut  short  over  her  eye 
brows.  "But,  Lucy,  my  child,  are  you  doing  right  to 
submit  to  impertinence?  In  the  old  days,  I  remember, 
before  the  war  —  This  from  Mrs.  William  Goode, 

who  had  been  Sally  Peterson,  the  beauty  of  Dinwiddie, 
and  who  was  still  superbly  handsome  in  a  tragic  fashion, 
with  a  haunted  look  in  her  eyes  and  masses  of  snow- 
white  hair  under  her  mourning  bonnet.  Years  ago 
Virginia  had  imagined  her  as  dwelling  perpetually  with 
the  memory  of  her  young  husband,  who  had  fallen  in 
his  twenty -fifth  year  in  the  Battle  of  Cold  Harbor, 
but  she  knew  now  that  the  haunted  eyes,  like  all 
things  human,  were  under  the  despotism  of  trifles. 
To  the  girl,  who  saw  in  this  universal  acquiescence  in 
littleness  merely  the  pitiful  surrender  of  feeble  souls, 
there  was  a  passionate  triumph  in  the  thought  that 
her  own  dreams  were  larger  than  the  actuality  that 
surrounded  her.  Youth's  scorn  of  the  narrow  details 
of  life  left  no  room  in  her  mind  for  an  understanding  of 
the  compromise  which  middle-age  makes  with  necessity. 
The  pathos  of  resignation  —  of  that  inevitable  sub 
mission  to  the  petty  powers  which  the  years  bring  — 
was  lost  upon  the  wistful  ignorance  of  inexperience. 
While  she  waited  dutifully,  with  her  absent  gaze  fixed 


62  VIRGINIA 

on  the  old  mulberry  trees,  which  whitened  as  the  wind 
blew  over  them  and  then  slowly  darkened  again,  she 
wondered  if  servants  and  gossip  were  the  only  things 
that  Oliver  had  heard  of  in  his  travels?  Then  she 
remembered  that  even  in  Dinwiddie  men  were  less 
interested  in  such  matters  than  they  were  in  the  in 
dustries  of  peanuts  and  tobacco.  Was  it  only  women, 
after  all,  who  were  in  subjection  to  particulars? 

When  they  turned  into  Old  Street,  John  Henry 
hailed  them  from  the  doorway  of  a  shop,  where  he 
stood  flanked  by  a  row  of  spotless  bathtubs.  He  wore 
a  loose  pongee  coat,  which  sagged  at  the  shoulders,  his 
straight  flaxen  hair  had  been  freshly  cut,  and  his  crim 
son  necktie  had  got  a  stain  on  it  at  breakfast;  but  to 
Virginia's  astonishment,  he  appeared  sublimely  un 
conscious  both  of  his  bathtubs  and  his  appearance. 
He  was  doubtless  under  the  delusion  that  a  pongee  coat, 
being  worn  for  comfort,  was  entirely  successful 
when  it  achieved  that  end;  and  as  for  his  busi 
ness,  it  was  beyond  his  comprehension  that  a  Pen- 
dleton  could  have  reason  to  blush  for  a  bathtub  or 
for  any  other  object  that  afforded  him  an  honest  live 
lihood. 

He  called  to  them  at  sight,  and  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
following  her  instinct  of  fitness,  left  the  conversation 
to  youth. 

"John  Henry,  father  is  going  to  see  Mr.  Treadwell 
about  the  place  in  the  bank.  WTon't  it  be  lovely  if  he 
gives  it  to  you!" 

"He  won't,"  replied  John  Henry.  "I'll  bet  you 
anything  he's  keeping  it  for  his  nephew." 

Virginia's  blush  came  quickly,  and  turning  her  head 
away,  she  gazed  earnestly  down  the  street  to  the  oc- 


FIRST  LOVE  63 

tagonal  market,  which  stood  on  the  spot  where  slaves 
were  offered  for  sale  when  she  was  born. 

"Mr.  Treadwell  is  crossing  the  street  now,"  she  said 
after  a  minute.  "I  wonder  why  he  keeps  his  mouth 
shut  so  tight  when  he  is  alone?" 

A  covered  cart,  which  had  been  passing  slowly, 
moved  up  the  hill,  and  from  beyond  it  there  appeared 
the  tall  spare  figure  of  a  man  with  iron-gray  hair,  curling 
a  little  on  the  temples,  a  sallow  skin,  splotched  with  red 
over  the  nose,  and  narrow  colourless  lips  that  looked  as 
if  they  were  cut  out  of  steel.  As  he  walked  quickly  up 
the  street,  every  person  whom  he  passed  turned  to 
glance  after  him. 

"I  wonder  if  it  is  true  that  he  hasn't  made  his  money 
honestly?"  asked  Virginia. 

"Oh,  I  hope  not!"  exclaimed  Mrs.  Pendleton,  who 
in  her  natural  desire  to  believe  only  good  about  people 
was  occasionally  led  into  believing  the  truth. 

"Well,  I  don't  care,"  retorted  Virginia,  "he's  mean. 
I  know  just  by  the  way  his  wife  dresses." 

"Oh,  Jinny!"  gasped  Mrs.  Pendleton,  and  glanced 
in  embarrassment  at  her  nephew,  whose  face,  to  her 
surprise,  was  beaming  with  enjoyment.  The  truth 
was  that  John  Henry,  who  would  have  condemned  so 
unreasonable  an  accusation  had  it  been  uttered  by  a 
full-grown  male,  was  enraptured  by  the  piquancy  of 
hearing  it  on  the  lovely  lips  of  his  cousin.  To  de 
mand  that  a  pretty  woman  should  possess  the  mental 
responsibility  of  a  human  being  would  have  seemed 
an  affront  to  his  inherited  ideas  of  gallantry.  His 
slow  wit  was  enslaved  by  Jinny's  audacity  as  com 
pletely  as  his  kind  ox-like  eyes  were  enthralled  by  the 
young  red  and  white  of  her  beauty. 


64  VIRGINIA 

"But  he's  a  great  man.  You  can't  deny  that,"  he 
said  with  the  playful  manner  in  which  he  might  have 
prodded  a  kitten  in  order  to  make  it  claw. 

"A  great  man!  Just  because  he  has  made  money!" 
"Well,  he  couldn't  have  got  rich,  you  know,  if  he 
hadn't  had  the  sense  to  see  how  to  do  it,"  replied  the 
young  man  with  enthusiasm.  Like  most  Southerners 
who  had  been  forced  without  preparation  into  the  hard 
school  of  industry,  he  had  found  that  his  standards 
followed  inevitably  the  changing  measure  of  his  cir 
cumstances.  From  his  altered  point  of  view,  the  part 
of  owing  property  appeared  so  easy,  and  the  part  of 
winning  it  so  difficult,  that  his  respect  for  culture  had 
yielded  almost  unconsciously  to  his  admiration  for 
commerce.  When  the  South  came  again  to  the  front, 
he  felt  instinctively  that  it  would  come,  shorn  of  its 
traditional  plumage,  a  victor  from  the  hard-fought 
industrial  battlefields  of  the  century;  and  because  Cyrus 
Tread  well  led  the  way  toward  this  triumph,  he  was 
ready  to  follow  him.  Of  the  whole  town,  this  grim, 
half  legendary  figure  (passionately  revered  and  as 
passionately  hated)  appeared  to  him  to  stand  alone  not 
for  the  decaying  past,  but  for  the  growing  future.  The 
stories  of  the  too  rapid  development  of  the  Treadwell 
fortune  he  cast  scornfully  aside  as  the  malicious  slanders 
of  failure.  What  did  all  this  tittle-tattle  about  a  great 
man  prove  anyhow  except  his  greatness?  Suppose  he 
had  used  his  railroad  to  make  a  fortune  —  well,  but  for 
him  where  would  the  Dinwiddie  and  Central  be  to-day 
if  not  in  the  junk  shop?  Where  would  the  lumber  mar 
ket  be?  the  cotton  market?  the  tobacco  market?  For 
around  Cyrus,  standing  alone  and  solitary  on  his 
height,  there  had  gathered  the  great  illusion  that  makes 


FIRST  LOVE  65 

theft  honest  and  falsehood  truth  —  the  illusion  of 
Success;  and  simple  John  Henry  Pendleton,  who,  after 
nineteen  years  of  poverty  and  memory,  was  bereft 
alike  of  classical  pedantry  and  of  physical  comforts, 
had  grown  a  little  weary  of  the  endless  lip-worship  of 
a  single  moment  in  history.  Granted  even  that  it  was 
the  greatest  moment  the  world  had  seen,  still  why 
couldn't  one  be  satisfied  to  have  it  take  its  place  beside 
the  wars  of  the  Spartans  and  of  the  ancient  Britons? 
Perpetual  mourning  was  well  enough  for  ladies  in 
crape  veils  and  heroic  gentlemen  on  crutches ;  but  when 
your  bread  and  meat  depended  not  upon  the  graves 
you  had  decorated,  but  upon  the  bathtubs  you  had 
sold,  surely  something  could  be  said  for  the  Treadwell 
point  of  view. 

As  Virginia  could  find  no  answer  to  this  remark,  the 
three  stood  in  silence,  gazing  dreamily,  with  three  pairs 
of  Pendleton  eyes,  down  toward  the  site  of  the  old 
slave  market.  Directly  in  their  line  of  vision,  an  over 
laden  mule  with  a  sore  shoulder  was  straining  painfully 
under  the  lash,  but  none  of  them  saw  it,  because  each 
of  them  was  morally  incapable  of  looking  an  unpleasant 
fact  in  the  face  if  there  was  any  honourable  manner  of 
avoiding  it.  What  they  beheld,  indeed,  was  the  most 
interesting  street  in  the  world,  filled  with  the  most 
interesting  people,  who  drove  happy  animals  that 
enjoyed  their  servitude  and  needed  the  sound  of  the 
lash  to  add  cheer  and  liveliness  to  their  labours. 
Never  had  the  Pendleton  idealism  achieved  a  more 
absolute  triumph  over  the  actuality. 

"Well,  we  must  go  on,"  murmured  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
withdrawing  her  visionary  gaze  from  the  hot  street 
littered  with  fruit  rinds  and  blood-stained  papers  from 


66  VIRGINIA 

a  neighbouring  butcher  shop.  "It  was  lovely  to  have 
this  glimpse  of  you,  John  Henry.  What  nice  bathtubs 
you  have!"  Smiling  her  still  lovely  smile  into  the 
young  man's  eyes,  she  proceeded  on  her  leisurely  way, 
while  Virginia  raised  the  black  silk  sunshade  over  her 
head.  In  front  of  them  they  could  see  long  rows  of 
fishcarts  and  vegetable  stalls  around  which  hovered  an 
army  of  eager  housekeepers.  The  social  hours  in 
Dinwiddie  at  that  period  were  the  early  morning  ones 
in  the  old  market,  and  Virginia  knew  that  she  should 
hear  Docia's  story  repeated  again  for  the  benefit  of  the 
curious  or  sympathetic  listeners  that  would  soon  gather 
about  her  mother.  Mrs.  Pendleton's  marketing,  un 
like  the  hurried  and  irresponsible  sort  of  to-day,  was 
an  affair  of  time  and  ceremony.  Among  the  greet 
ings  and  the  condolences  from  other  marketers  there 
would  ensue  lengthy  conversations  with  the  vendors 
of  poultry,  of  fish,  or  of  vegetables.  Every  vegetable 
must  be  carefully  selected  by  her  own  hands  and  laid 
aside  into  her  special  basket,  which  was  in  the  anxious 
charge  of  a  small  coloured  urchin.  While  she  felt  the 
plump  breasts  of  Mr.  Dewlap's  chickens,  she  would 
inquire  with  flattering  condescension  after  the  members 
of  Mr.  Dewlap's  family.  Not  only  did  she  remember 
each  one  of  them  by  name,  but  she  never  forgot  either 
the  dates  of  their  birthdays  or  the  number  of  turkeys 
Mrs.  Dewlap  had  raised  in  a  season.  If  marketing  is 
ever  to  be  elevated  from  an  occupation  to  an  art,  it  will 
be  by  a  return  to  Mrs.  Pendleton's  method. 

"Mother,  please  buy  some  strawberries,"  begged 
Virginia. 

"  Darling,  you  know  we  never  buy  fruit,  or  desserts. 
Somebody  will  certainly  send  us  something.  I  saw 


FIRST  LOVE  67 

Mrs.  Carrington  whipping  syllabub  on  her  back  porch 
as  we  passed." 

"But  they're  only  five  cents  a  basket." 

"Well,  put  a  basket  with  my  marketing,  Mr.  Dew 
lap.  Yes,  I'll  take  that  white  pullet  if  you're  sure  that 
she  is  plumper  than  the  red  one." 

She  moved  on  a  step  or  two,  while  the  white  pullet 
was  handed  over  by  its  feet  to  the  small  coloured  urchin 
and  to  destruction.  If  Mrs.  Pendleton  had  ever 
reflected  on  the  tragic  fate  of  pullets,  she  would  prob 
ably  have  concluded  that  it  was  "best"  for  them  to  be 
fried  and  eaten,  or  Providence,  whose  merciful  wisdom 
she  never  questioned,  would  not  have  permitted  it. 
So,  in  the  old  days,  she  had  known  where  the  slave 
market  stood,  without  realizing  in  the  least  that  men 
and  women  were  sold  there.  "Poor  things,  it  does 
seem  dreadful,  but  I  suppose  it  is  better  for  them  to  have 
a  change  sometimes,"  she  would  doubtless  have  rea 
soned  had  the  horror  of  the  custom  ever  occurred  to 
her  —  for  her  heart  was  so  sensitive  to  pain  that  she 
could  exist  at  all  only  by  inventing  a  world  of  exquisite 
fiction  around  her. 

"Aren't  you  nearly  through,  mother?"  pleaded 
Virginia  at  last.  "The  sun  will  be  so  hot  going  home 
that  it  will  make  your  head  worse." 

Mrs.  Pendleton,  who  was  splitting  a  pea-shell  with 
her  thumb  in  order  to  ascertain  the  size  and  quality  of 
the  peas,  murmured  soothingly,  "Just  a  minute, 
dear";  and  the  girl,  finding  it  impossible  to  share  her 
mother's  enthusiasm  for  slaughtered  animals,  fell  back 
again  into  the  narrow  shade  of  the  stalls.  She  revolted 
with  a  feeling  of  outrage  against  the  side  of  life  that 
confronted  her  —  against  the  dirty  floor,  strewn  with 


68  VIRGINIA 

withered  vegetables  above  which  flies  swarmed  inces 
santly,  and  against  the  pathos  of  the  small  bleeding 
forms  which  seemed  related  neither  to  the  lamb  in  the 
fields  nor  to  the  Sunday  roast  on  the  table.  That 
divine  gift  of  evasion,  which  enabled  Mrs.  Pendleton  to 
see  only  the  thing  she  wanted  to  see  in  every  occurrence, 
was  but  partially  developed  as  yet  in  Virginia;  and 
while  she  stood  there  in  the  midst  of  her  unromantic 
surroundings,  the  girl  shuddered  lest  Oliver  Tread  well 
should  know  that  she  had  ever  waited,  hot,  perspiring, 
with  a  draggled  skirt,  and  a  bag  of  tomatoes  grasped 
in  her  hands,  while  her  mother  wandered  from  stall  to 
stall  in  a  tireless  search  for  peas  a  few  cents  cheaper 
than  those  of  Mr.  Dewlap.  Youth,  with  its  ingenuous 
belief  that  love  dwells  in  external  circumstances,  was 
protesting  against  the  bland  assumption  of  age  that 
love  creates  its  own  peculiar  circumstances  out  of  it 
self.  It  was  absurd,  she  knew,  to  imagine  that  her 
father's  affection  for  her  mother  would  alter  because 
she  haggled  over  the  price  of  peas ;  yet  the  emotion  with 
which  she  endowed  Oliver  Treadwell  was  so  delicate 
and  elusive  that  she  felt  that  the  sight  of  a  soiled  skirt 
and  a  perspiring  face  would  blast  it  forever.  It  ap 
peared  imperative  that  he  should  see  her  in  white 
muslin,  and  she  resolved  that  if  it  cost  Docia  her  life 
she  would  have  the  flounces  of  her  dress  smoothed  be 
fore  evening.  She,  who  was  by  nature  almost  mor 
bidly  sensitive  to  suffering,  became,  in  the  hands  of  this 
new  and  implacable  power,  as  ruthless  as  Fate. 

"Now  I'm  ready,  Jinny  dear.  Are  you  tired  wait 
ing?"  asked  Mrs.  Pendleton,  coming  toward  her  with 
the  coloured  urchin  in  her  train.  "Why,  there's  Susan 
Treadwell.  Have  you  spoken  to  her?" 


FIRST  LOVE  69 

The  next  instant,  before  the  startled  girl  could  turn, 
a  voice  cried  out  triumphantly:  "O  Jinny!"  and  in 
front  of  her,  looking  over  Susan's  shoulder,  she  saw  the 
eager  eyes  and  the  thin,  high-coloured  face  of  Oliver 
Tread  well.  For  a  moment  she  told  herself  that  he 
had  read  her  thoughts  with  his  penetrating  gaze,  which 
seemed  to  pierce  through  her;  and  she  blushed  pink 
while  her  eyes  burned  under  her  trembling  lashes. 
Then  the  paper  bag,  containing  the  tomatoes,  burst  in 
her  hands,  and  its  contents  rolled,  one  by  one,  over  the 
littered  floor  to  his  feet.  Both  stooped  at  once  to  re 
cover  it,  and  while  their  hands  touched  amid  wilted 
cabbage  leaves,  the  girl  felt  that  love  had  taken  gilded 
wings  and  departed  forever!  '  ^  


"Put  them  in  the  basket,  dear,"  Mrs.  Pendlet 
could  be  heard  saying  calmly  in  the  midst  of  her  daugh 
ter's  agony  —  for,  having  lived  through  the  brief 
illumination  of  romance,  she  had  come  at  last  into  that 
steady  glow  which  encompasses  the  commonplace. 

"This  is  my  cousin  Oliver,  Virginia,"  remarked  Susan 
as  casually  as  if  the  meeting  of  the  two  had  not  been 
planned  from  all  eternity  by  the  beneficent  Powers. 

"I'm  afraid  I've  spoiled  your  nice  red  tomatoes," 
said  a  voice  that  filled  Virginia's  whirling  mind  with  a 
kind  of  ecstatic  dizziness.  As  the  owner  of  the  voice 
held  out  his  hand,  she  saw  that  it  was  long  and  thin 
like  the  rest  of  him,  with  blue  veins  crossing  the  back, 
and  slender,  slightly  crooked  fingers  that  hurt  hers  with 
the  strength  of  their  pressure.  "To  confess  the 
truth,"  he  added  gaily  after  an  instant,  "my  breath  was 
quite  taken  away  because,  somehow,  this  was  the  last 
place  on  earth  in  which  I  expected  to  find  you.  It's  a 
dreadful  spot  —  don't  you  think  so?  If  we've  got  to 


70  VIRGINIA 

be  cannibals,  why  in  Heaven's  name  make  a  show  and  a 
parade  of  it?" 

"What  an  extraordinary  young  man!"  said  Mrs. 
Pendleton's  eyes;  and  Virginia  found  herself  blushing 
again  because  she  felt  that  her  mother  had  not  under 
stood  him.  A  delicious  embarrassment  —  something 
different  and  more  vivid  than  any  sensation  she  had 
ever  known  —  held  her  speechless  while  he  looked  at 
her.  Had  her  life  depended  on  it,  she  could  not  have 
uttered  a  sentence  —  could  hardly  even  have  lifted 
her  lashes,  which  seemed  suddenly  to  have  become  so 
heavy  that  she  felt  the  burden  of  them  weighing  over 
her  eyes.  All  the  picturesque  phrases  she  had  planned 
to  speak  at  their  first  meeting  had  taken  wings  with 
perfidious  romance,  yet  she  would  have  given  her 
dearest  possession  to  have  been  able  to  say  some 
thing  really  clever.  "He  thinks  me  a  simpleton,  of 
course,"  she  thought  —  perfectly  unconscious  that 
Oliver  was  not  thinking  of  her  wits  at  all,  but  of  the 
wonderful  rose-pink  of  her  flesh.  At  one  and  the  same 
instant,  she  felt  that  this  silence  was  the  most  marvel 
lous  thing  that  had  ever  happened  to  her  and  longed  to 
break  it  with  some  speech  so  brilliant  that  he  would 
never  forget  it.  Little  thrills  of  joy,  like  tiny  flames, 
ran  over  her,  and  the  light  in  her  eyes  shone  on  him 
through  the  quivering  dusk  of  her  lashes.  Even  when 
she  looked  away  from  him,  she  could  still  see  his  ex 
pression  of  tender  gaiety,  as  though  he  were  trying  in 
vain  to  laugh  himself  free  from  an  impulse  that  was 
fast  growing  too  strong  for  him.  What  she  did  not 
know  was  that  the  spring  was  calling  to  him  through  her 
youth  and  sex  as  it  was  calling  through  the  scented 
winds  and  the  young  buds  on  the  trees.  She  was  as 


FIRST  LOVE  71 

ignorant  that  she  offered  herself  to  him  through  her 
velvet  softness,  through  the  glow  in  her  eyes,  through 
her  quivering  lips,  as  the  flower  is  that  it  allures  the  bee 
by  its  perfume.  So  subtly  did  Life  use  her  for  its  end 
that  the  illusion  of  choice  in  first  love  remained  unim 
paired.  Though  she  was  young  desire  incarnate,  he 
saw  in  her  only  the  unique  and  solitary  woman  of  his 
dreams. 

"Do  you  come  here  every  day? "  he  asked,  and  imme 
diately  the  blue  sky  and  the  octagonal  market  spun 
round  at  his  voice. 

As  nothing  but  commonplace  words  would  come  to 
her,  she  was  obliged  at  last  to  utter  them.  "Oh,  no, 
not  every  day." 

"I've  always  had  a  tremendous  sympathy  for  women 
because  they  have  to  market  and  housekeep.  I  won 
der  if  they  won't  revolt  some  time?" 

This  was  so  heretical  a  point  of  view  that  she  tried 
earnestly  to  comprehend  it;  but  all  the  time  her  heart 
was  busy  telling  her  how  different  he  was  from  every 
other  man  —  how  much  more  interesting !  how  im 
measurably  superior!  Her  attention,  in  spite  of  her 
efforts  at  serious  thought,  would  not  wander  from  the 
charm  of  his  voice,  from  the  peculiar  whimsical  trick 
of  his  smile,  which  lifted  his  mouth  at  one  corner  and 
made  odd  little  wrinkles  come  and  go  about  his  eyes. 
His  manner  was  full  of  sudden  nervous  gestures  which 
surprised  and  enchanted  her.  All  other  men  were  not 
merely  as  clay  beside  him  —  they  were  as  straw! 
Seeing  that  he  was  waiting  for  a  response,  she  made  a 
violent  endeavour  to  think  of  one,  and  uttered  almost 
inaudibly:  "But  don't  they  like  it?" 

"Ah,  that's  just  it,"  he  answered  as  seriously  as  if 


72  VIRGINIA 

she  hadn't  known  that  her  speech  bordered  on  im 
becility.  "Do  they  really  like  it?  or  have  they  been 
throwing  dust  in  our  eyes  through  the  centuries?" 
And  he  gazed  at  her  as  eagerly  as  if  he  were  hanging 
upon  her  answer.  Oh,  if  she  could  only  say  something 
clever!  If  she  could  only  say  the  sort  of  thing  that 
would  shock  Miss  Priscilla!  But  nothing  came  of  her 
wish,  and  she  was  reduced  at  last  to  the  pathetic  re 
joinder,  "I  don't  know.  I'm  afraid  I've  never  thought 
about  it." 

For  a  moment  he  stared  at  her  as  though  he  were 
enraptured  by  her  reply.  With  such  eyes  and  such 
hair,  she  might  have  been  as  simple  as  she  appeared  and 
he  would  never  have  known  it.  "Of  course  you 
haven't,  or  you  wouldn't  be  you!"  he  responded;  and 
by  the  time  she  came  to  her  senses,  she  was  follow 
ing  her  mother  and  the  negro  urchin  out  of  the  market. 
Though  she  was  in  reality  walking  over  cinders,  she 
felt  that  her  feet  were  treading  on  golden  air. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    TREADWELLS 

ABOVE  the  Dinwiddie  of  Virginia's  girlhood,  rising 
sharply  out  of  the  smoothly  blended  level  of  personali 
ties,  there  towered,  as  far  back  as  she  could  remember, 
the  grim  and  yet  strangely  living  figure  of  Cyrus 
Tread  well.  From  the  intimate  social  life  of  the 
town  he  had  remained  immovably  detached;  but 
from  the  beginning  it  had  been  impossible  for  that 
life  to  ignore  him.  Among  a  people  knit  by  a  common 
pulse,  yet  separated  by  a  multitude  of  individual 
differences,  he  stood  aloof  and  indispensable,  like  one 
of  the  gaunt  iron  bridges  of  his  great  railroad.  He  was 
at  once  the  destroyer  and  the  builder  —  the  inexorable 
foe  of  the  old  feudal  order  and  the  beneficent  source 
of  the  new  industrialism.  Though  half  of  Dinwiddie 
hated  him,  the  other  half  (hating  him,  perhaps  none 
the  less)  ate  its  bread  from  his  hands.  The  town, 
which  had  lived,  fought,  lost,  and  suffered  not  as  a 
group  of  individuals,  but  as  a  psychological  unit,  had 
surrendered  at  last,  less  to  the  idea  of  readjustment 
than  to  the  indomitable  purpose  of  a  single  mind. 

And  yet  nobody  in  Dinwiddie,  not  even  Miss  Willy 
Whitlow,  who  sewed  out  by  the  day,  and  knew  the 
intimate  structure  of  every  skeleton  in  every  closet 
of  the  town  —  nobody  could  tell  the  precise  instant 
at  which  Cyrus  had  ceased  to  be  an  ordinary  man  and 

73 


74  VIRGINIA 

become  a  great  one.  A  phrase,  which  had  started  as 
usual,  "The  Mr.  Tread  well,  you  know,  who  married 
poor  Belinda  Bolingbroke — "  swerved  suddenly  to 
"Cyrus  Treadwell  told  me  that,  and  you  must  admit 
that  he  knows  what  he  is  talking  about"  —  and  a 
reputation  was  made !  His  marriage  to  "poor  Belinda," 
which  had  at  first  appeared  to  be  the  most  conspicuous 
fact  in  his  career,  dwindled  to  insignificance  beside 
the  rebuilding  of  the  tobacco  industry  and  his  imme 
diate  elevation  to  the  vacant  presidency  of  one  of  the 
Machlin  railroads. 

It  was  true  that  in  the  meantime  he  had  fought 
irreproachably,  but  without  renown,  through  a  number 
of  battles;  and  returning  to  a  vanquished  and  ruined 
city,  had  found  himself  still  young  enough  to  go  to 
school  again  in  matters  of  finance.  Whether  he  had 
learned  from  Antrum,  the  despised  carpet-bagger  for 
Machlin  &  Company,  or  had  taken  his  instructions 
at  first  hand  from  the  great  Machlin  himself,  was  in 
the  eighties  an  open  question  in  Dinwiddie.  The 
choice  was  probably  given  him  to  learn  or  starve;  and 
aided  by  the  keen  understanding  and  the  acute  sense 
of  property  he  had  inherited  from  his  Scotch-Irish 
parentage,  he  had  doubtless  decided  that  to  learn 
was,  after  all,  the  easier  way.  Saving  he  had  always 
been,  and  yet  with  such  strange  and  sudden  starts 
of  generosity  that  he  had  been  known  to  seek  out 
distant  obscure  maiden  relatives  and  redeem  the 
mortgaged  roof  over  their  heads.  His  strongest 
instinct,  which  was  merely  an  attenuated  shoot  from 
his  supreme  feeling  for  possessions,  was  that  of  race, 
though  he  had  estranged  both  his  son  and  his  daughter 
by  his  stubborn  conviction  that  he  was  not  doing 


THE  TREADWELLS  75 

his  duty  by  them  except  when  he  was  making  their 
lives  a  burden.  For,  as  with  most  men  who  have 
suffered  in  their  youth  under  oppression,  his  ambition 
was  not  so  much  to  relieve  the  oppressed  as  to  become 
in  his  turn  the  oppressor.  Owing,  perhaps,  to  his 
fine  Scotch-Irish  blood,  which  ran  a  little  muddy  in 
his  veins,  he  had  never  lost  a  certain  primitive  feeling 
of  superstition,  like  the  decaying  root  of  a  religious 
instinct;  and  he  was  as  strict  in  his  attendance  upon 
church  as  he  was  loose  in  applying  the  principles  of 
Christianity  to  his  daily  life.  Sunday  was  vaguely 
associated  in  his  mind  with  such  popular  fetiches  as  a 
frock  coat  and  a  roast  of  beef;  and  if  the  roast  had  been 
absent  from  dinner,  he  would  have  felt  precisely 
the  same  indefinite  disquietude  that  troubled  him 
when  the  sermon  was  left  out  of  the  service.  So 
completely  did  his  outward  life  shape  itself  around 
the  inner  structure  of  his  thought,  that,  except  for  the 
two  days  of  the  week  which  he  spent  with  unfailing 
regularity  in  Wall  Street,  he  might  have  been  said 
to  live  only  in  his  office.  Once  when  his  doctor 
had  prescribed  exercise  for  a  slight  dyspepsia,  he  had 
added  a  few  additional  blocks  to  his  morning  and 
evening  walk,  and  it  was  while  he  was  performing  this 
self-inflicted  penance  that  he  came  upon  Gabriel,  who 
was  hastening  toward  him  in  behalf  of  John  Henry. 
For  an  instant  a  gleam  of  light  shone  on  Cyrus's 
features,  and  they  stood  out,  palely  illuminated,  like 
the  features  of  a  bronze  statue  above  which  a  torch 
suddenly  flares.  His  shoulders,  which  stooped  until 
his  coat  had  curved  in  the  back,  straightened  them 
selves  with  a  jerk,  while  he  held  out  his  hand,  on 
which  an  old  sabre  cut  was  still  visible.  This  faded 


76  VIRGINIA 

scar  had  always  seemed  to  Gabriel  the  solitary  proof 
that  the  great  man  was  created  of  flesh  and  blood. 

"I've  come  about  a  little  matter  of  business," 
began  the  rector  in  an  apologetic  tone,  for  in  Cyrus's 
presence  he  was  never  without  an  uneasy  feeling  that 
the  problems  of  the  spirit  were  secondary  to  the  prob 
lems  of  finance. 

"Well,  I'm  just  going  into  the  office.  Come  in  and 
sit  down.  I'm  glad  to  see  you.  You  bring  back  the 
four  happiest  years  of  my  life,  Gabriel.' 

"And  of  mine,  too.  It's  queer,  isn't  it,  how  the 
savage  seems  to  sleep  in  the  most  peaceable  of  men? 
We  were  half  starved  in  those  days,  half  naked,  and 
without  the  certainty  that  we'd  live  until  sunset  — 
but,  dreadful  as  it  sounds,  I  was  happier  then  —  God 
help  me!  —  than  I've  ever  been  before  or  since." 

Passing  through  an  outer  office,  where  a  number 
of  young  men  were  bending  over  ledgers,  they  entered 
Cyrus's  private  room,  and  sat  down  in  two  plain  pine 
chairs  under  the  coloured  lithograph  of  an  engine 
which  ornamented  the  largest  space  on  the  wall.  The 
room  was  bare  of  the  most  ordinary  comforts,  as  though 
its  owner  begrudged  the  few  dollars  he  must  spend  to 
improve  his  surroundings. 

"Well,  those  days  are  over,  and  you  say  it's  business 
that  you've  come  about?"  retorted  Cyrus,  not  rudely, 
but  with  the  manner  of  a  man  who  seldom  wastes 
words  and  whose  every  expenditure  either  of  time  or 
of  money  must  achieve  some  definite  result. 

"Yes,  it's  business."  The  rector's  tone  had  chilled 
a  little,  and  he  added  in  spite  of  his  judgment,  "I'm 
afraid  it's  a  favour.  Everybody  comes  begging  to  you, 
I  suppose?" 


THE  TREADWELLS  77 

"Then,  it's  the  Sunday-school  picnic,  I  reckon. 
I  haven't  forgotten  it.  Smithson!"  An  alert  young 
man  appeared  at  the  door.  "Make  a  note  that  Mr. 
Pendleton  wants  coaches  for  the  Saint  James'  Church 
picnic  on  the  twenty-ninth.  You  said  twenty-ninth, 
didn't  you,  Gabriel?" 

"If  the  weather's  good,"  replied  Gabriel  meekly, 
and  then  as  Smithson  withdrew,  he  glanced  nervously 
at  the  lithograph  of  the  engine.  "But  it  wasn't  about 
the  picnic  that  I  came,"  he  said.  "The  fact  is,  I 
wanted  to  ask  you  to  use  your  influence  in  the  matter 
of  getting  John  Henry  a  place  in  the  bank.  He  has 
done  very  well  at  the  night  school,  and  I  believe  that 
you  would  find  him  entirely  satisfactory." 

At  the  first  mention  of  the  bank,  a  look  of  distrust 
crept  into  Cyrus's  face  —  a  look  cautious,  alert,  sus 
picious,  such  as  he  wore  at  directors'  meetings  when 
there  was  a  chance  that  something  might  be  got  out 
of  him  if  for  a  minute  he  were  to  go  off  his  guard. 

"I  feel  a  great  responsibility  for  him,"  resumed 
Gabriel  almost  sternly,  though  he  was  painfully  aware 
that  his  assurance  had  deserted  him. 

"Why  don't  you  go  to  James?  James  is  the  one 
to  see  about  such  a  matter." 

If  the  rector  had  spoken  the  thought  in  his  mind, 
he  would  have  answered,  "Because  James  reminds  me 
of  a  fish  and  I  can't  abide  him";  but  instead,  he  replied 
simply,  "I  know  James  so  slightly  that  I  don't  feel 
in  a  position  to  ask  a  favour  of  him." 

The  expression  of  suspicion  left  Cyrus's  face,  and 
he  relaxed  from  the  strained  attitude  in  which  he  had 
sat  ever  since  the  Sunday-school  picnic  had  been 
dismissed  from  the  conversation.  Leaning  back  in  his 


78  VIRGINIA 

chair,  he  drew  two  cigars  from  the  pocket  of  his  coat, 
and  after  glancing  a  little  reluctantly  at  them  both, 
offered  one  to  the  rector.  "I  believe  he  really  wanted 
me  to  refuse  it!"  flashed  through  Gabriel's  mind  like 
an  arrow  —  though  the  other's  hesitation  had  been, 
in  fact,  only  an  unconscious  trick  of  manner  which 
he  had  acquired  during  the  long  lean  years  when 
he  had  fattened  chiefly  by  not  giving  away.  The 
gift  of  a  cigar  could  mean  nothing  to  a  man  who  will 
ingly  contributed  to  every  charity  in  town,  but  the 
trivial  gestures  that  accompany  one's  early  habits 
occasionally  outlast  the  peculiar  circumstances  from 
which  they  spring. 

For  a  few  minutes  they  smoked  in  silence.  Then 
Cyrus  remarked  in  his  precise  voice:  "James  is  a 
clever  fellow  —  a  clever  fellow." 

"I've  heard  that  he  is  as  good  as  right  hand  to  you. 
That's  a  fine  thing  to  say  of  a  son." 

"Yes,  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do  without 
James.  He's  a  saving  hand,  and,  I  tell  you,  there  are 
more  fortunes  made  by  saving  than  by  gambling." 

"Well,  I  don't  think  James  need  ever  give  you  any 
concern  on  that  account,"  replied  Gabriel,  not  without 
gentle  satire,  for  he  recalled  several  unpleasant  en 
counters  with  the  younger  Treadwell  on  the  subject 
of  charity.  "But  I've  heard  different  tales  of  that 
nephew  of  yours  who  has  just  come  back  from  God 
knows  what  country." 

"He's  Henry's  son,"  replied  Cyrus  with  a  frown. 
"You  haven't  forgotten  Henry?" 

"  Yes,  I  remember.  Henry  and  George  both  went  out 
to  Australia  to  open  the  tobacco  market,  and  Henry 
died  poor  while  George  lived  and  got  rich,  I  believe?" 


THE  TREADWELLS  79 

"George  kept  free  of  women  and  attended  to  his 
affairs,"  returned  Cyrus,  who  was  as  frank  about 
his  family  as  he  was  secretive  about  his  business. 

"But  what  about  Henry's  son?  He's  a  promising 
chap,  isn't  he?" 

"It  depends  upon  what  you  call  promising,  I  reckon. 
Before  he  came  I  thought  of  putting  him  into  the 
bank,  but  since  I've  seen  him,  I  can't,  for  the  life 
of  me,  think  of  anything  to  do  with  him.  Unless,  of 
course,  you  could  see  your  way  toward  taking  him 
into  the  ministry,"  he  concluded  with  sardonic  humour. 

"His  views  on  theology  would  prevent  that,  I 
fear,"  replied  the  rector,  while  all  the  kindly  little 
wrinkles  leaped  out  around  his  eyes. 

"Views?  What  do  anybody's  views  matter  who 
can't  make  a  living?  But  to  tell  the  truth,  there's 
something  about  him  that  I  don't  trust.  He  isn't 
like  Henry,  so  he  must  take  after  that  pretty  fool 
Henry  married.  Now,  if  he  had  James's  temper, 
I  could  make  something  out  of  him,  but  he's  different 
—  he's  fly-up-the-creek  —  he's  as  flighty  as  a  woman." 

Gabriel,  who  had  been  a  little  cheered  to  learn  that 
the  young  man,  with  all  his  faults,  did  not  resemble 
James,  hastened  to  assure  Cyrus  that  there  might  be 
some  good  in  the  boy,  after  all  —  that  he  was  only 
twenty-two,  and  that,  in  any  case,  it  was  too  soon  to 
pass  judgment. 

"I  can't  stand  his  talk,  "  returned  the  other  grimly. 
"I've  never  heard  anybody  but  a  preacher  —  I  beg 
your  pardon,  Gabriel,  nothing  personal !  —  who  could 
keep  going  so  long  when  nobody  was  listening.  A 
mere  wind-bag,  that's  what  he  is,  with  a  lot  of  non 
sensical  ideas  about  his  own  importance.  If  there 


80  VIRGINIA 

wasn't  a  girl  in  the  house,  it  would  be  no  great  matter, 
but  that  Susan  of  mine  is  so  headstrong  that  I'm  half 
afraid  she'll  get  crazy  and  imagine  she's  fallen  in  love 
with  him." 

This  proof  of  parental  anxiety  touched  Gabriel  in 
his  tenderest  spot.  After  all,  though  Cyrus  had  a 
harsh  surface,  there  was  much  good  at  the  bottom 
of  him.  "I  can  enter  into  your  feelings  about  that," 
he  answered  sympathetically,  "though  my  Jinny,  I 
am  sure,  would  never  allow  herself  to  think  seriously 
about  a  man  without  first  asking  my  opinion  of  him." 

"Then  you're  fortunate,"  commented  Cyrus  dryly, 
"for  I  don't  believe  Susan  would  give  a  red  cent  for 
what  I'd  think  if  she  once  took  a  fancy.  She'd  as 
soon  elope  with  that  wild-eyed  scamp  as  eat  her  dinner, 
if  it  once  entered  her  head." 

A  knock  came  at  the  door,  and  Smithson  entered 
and  conferred  with  his  employer  over  a  telegram, 
while  Gabriel  rose  to  his  feet. 

"By  the  way,"  said  Cyrus,  turning  abruptly  from 
his  secretary  and  stopping  the  rector  as  he  was  about 
to  pass  out  of  the  door,  "I  was  just  wondering  if  you 
remembered  the  morning  after  Lee's  surrender,  when 
we  started  home  on  the  road  together?" 

"Why,  yes."  There  was  a  note  of  surprise  in 
Gabriel's  answer,  for  he  remembered,  also,  that  he  had 
sold  his  watch  a  little  later  in  the  day  to  a  Union 
soldier,  and  had  divided  the  eighty  dollars  with  Cyrus. 
For  an  instant,  he  almost  believed  that  the  other  was 
going  to  allude  for  the  first  time  to  that  incident. 

"Well,  I've  never  forgotten  that  green  persimmon 
tree  by  the  roadside,"  pursued  the  great  man,  "and 
the  way  you  stopped  under  it  and  said,  'O  Lord,  wilt 


THE  TREADWELLS  81 

Thou  not  work  a  miracle  and  make  persimmons 
ripen  in  the  spring?" 

"No,  I'd  forgotten  it,"  rejoined  Gabriel  coolly, 
for  he  was  hurt  by  the  piece  of  flippancy  and  was 
thinking  the  worst  of  Cyrus  again. 

"You'd  forgotten  it?  Well,  I've  a  long  memory, 
and  I  never  forget.  That's  one  thing  you  may  count 
on  me  for,"  he  added,  "a  good  memory.  As  for  John 
Henry  —  I'll  see  James  about  it.  I'll  see  what 
James  has  to  say." 

When  Gabriel  had  gone,  accompanied  as  far  as  the 
outer  door  by  the  secretary,  Cyrus  turned  back  to  the 
window,  and  stood  gazing  over  a  steep  street  or  two, 
and  past  the  gabled  roof  of  an  old  stone  house,  to 
where  in  the  distance  the  walls  of  the  new  building 
of  the  Treadwell  Tobacco  Company  were  rising. 
Around  the  skeleton  structure  he  could  see  the  work 
men  moving  like  ants,  while  in  a  widening  circle  of  air 
the  smoke  of  other  factories  floated  slowly  upward 
under  a  brazen  sky.  "There  are  too  many  of  them," 
he  thought  bitterly.  "It's  competition  that  kills. 
There  are  too  many  of  them." 

So  rapt  was  his  look  while  he  stood  there  that  there 
came  into  his  face  an  expression  of  yearning  sentiment 
that  made  it  almost  human.  Then  his  gaze  wandered 
to  the  gleaming  tracks  of  the  two  great  railroads  which 
ran  out  of  Dinwiddie  toward  the  north,  uncoiling 
their  length  like  serpents  between  the  broad  fields 
sprinkled  with  the  tender  green  of  young  crops. 
Beside  them  trailed  the  ashen  country  roads  over 
which  farmers  were  crawling  with  their  covered  wagons; 
but,  while  Cyrus  watched  from  his  height,  there  was 
as  little  thought  in  his  mind  for  the  men  who  drove 


82  VIRGINIA 

those  wagons  through  the  parching  dust  as  for  the 
beasts  that  drew  them.  It  is  possible  even  that  he 
did  not  see  them,  for  just  as  Mrs.  Pendleton's  vision 
eliminated  the  sight  of  suffering  because  her  heart 
was  too  tender  to  bear  it,  so  he  overlooked  all  facts 
except  those  which  were  a  part  of  the  dominant  motive 
of  his  life.  Nearer  still,  within  the  narrow  board 
fences  which  surrounded  the  backyards  of  negro  hovels, 
under  the  moving  shadows  of  broad-leaved  mulberry 
or  sycamore  trees,  he  gazed  down  on  the  swarms  of 
mulatto  children;  though  to  his  mind  that  problem, 
like  the  problem  of  labour,  loomed  vague,  detached, 
and  unreal  —  a  thing  that  existed  merely  in  the  air, 
not  in  the  concrete  images  that  he  could  understand. 

"Well,  it's  a  pity  Gabriel  never  made  more  of 
himself,"  he  thought  kindly.  "Yes,  it's  a  pity.  I'll 
see  what  I  can  do  for  him." 

At  six  o'clock  that  evening,  when  the  end  of  his 
business  day  had  come,  he  joined  James  at  the  door 
for  his  walk  back  to  Bolingbroke  Street. 

"Have  you  done  anything  about  Jones's  place  in 
the  bank?"  was  the  first  question  he  asked  after  his 
abrupt  nod  of  greeting. 

"No,  sir.  I  thought  you  were  waiting  to  find  out 
about  Oliver." 

"Then  you  thought  wrong.  The  fellow's  a  fool. 
Look  up  that  nephew  of  Gabriel  Pendleton,  and  see 
if  he  is  fit  for  the  job.  I  am  sorry  Jones  is  dead," 
he  added  with  a  touch  of  feeling.  "I  remember  I  got 
him  that  place  the  year  after  the  war,  and  I  never 
knew  him  to  be  ten  minutes  late  during  all  the  time 
that  I  worked  with  him." 

"But  what  are  we  to  do  with  Oliver?"  inquired 


THE  TREADWELLS  83 

James  after  a  pause.  "Of  course  he  wouldn't  be 
much  good  in  the  bank,  but 

And  without  finishing  his  sentence,  he  glanced  up 
in  a  tentative,  non-committal  manner  into  Cyrus's 
face.  He  was  a  smaller  and  somewhat  imperfect 
copy  of  his  father,  naturally  timid,  and  possessed  of  a 
superstitious  feeling  that  he  should  die  in  an  accident. 
His  thin  anaemic  features  lacked  the  strength  of 
the  Tread  wells,  though  in  his  cautious  and  taciturn 
way  he  was  very  far  indeed  from  being  the  fool 
people  generally  thought  him.  Since  he  had  never 
loved  anything  with  passion  except  money,  he  was 
regarded  by  his  neighbours  as  a  man  of  unimpeachable 
morality. 

At  the  end  of  the  block,  while  the  long  pointed 
shadows  of  their  feet  kept  even  pace  on  the  stone 
crossing,  Cyrus  answered  abruptly:  "Put  him  any 
where  out  of  my  sight.  I  can't  bear  the  look  of  him." 

"How  would  you  like  to  give  him  something  to  do 
on  the  road?  Put  him  under  Borrows,  for  instance, 
and  let  him  learn  a  bit  about  freight?" 

"Well,  I  don't  care.  Only  don't  let  me  see  him  — 
he  turns  my  stomach." 

"Then  as  long  as  we've  got  to  support  him,  I'll 
tell  him  he  may  try  his  hand  at  the  job  of  assistant 
freight  agent,  if  he  wants  to  earn  his  keep." 

"He'll  never  do  that  —  just  as  well  put  him  down 
under  'waste,'  and  have  done  with  him,"  replied 
Cyrus,  chuckling. 

A  little  girl,  rolling  a  hoop,  tripped  and  fell  at  his 
feet,  and  he  nodded  at  her  kindly,  for  he  had  a  strong 
physical  liking  for  children,  though  he  had  never 
stopped  to  think  about  them  in  a  human  or  personal 


84  VIRGINIA 

way.  He  had,  indeed,  never  stopped  to  think  about 
anything  except  the  absorbing  problem  of  how  to  make 
something  out  of  nothing.  Everything  else,  even  his 
marriage,  had  made  merely  a  superficial  impression 
upon  him.  What  people  called  his  "luck"  was  only 
the  relentless  pursuit  of  an  idea;  and  in  this  pur 
suit  all  other  sides  of  his  nature  had  been  sapped  of 
energy.  From  the  days  when  he  had  humbly 
accepted  small  commissions  from  the  firm  of  Machlin 
&  Company,  to  the  last  few  years,  when  he  had  come 
to  be  regarded  almost  superstitiously  as  the  saviour 
of  sinking  properties,  he  had  moved  quietly,  cautiously, 
and  unswervingly  in  one  direction.  The  blighting 
panic  of  ten  years  before  had  hardly  touched  him,  so 
softly  had  he  ventured,  and  so  easy  was  it  for  him  to 
return  to  his  little  deals  and  his  diet  of  crumbs.  They 
were  bad  times,  those  years,  alike  for  rich  and  poor, 
for  Northerner  and  Southerner;  but  in  the  midst  of 
crashing  firms  and  noiseless  factories,  he  had  cut  down 
his  household  expenses  to  a  pittance  and  had  gone  on  as 
secretively  as  ever  —  waiting,  watching,  hoping,  until 
the  worst  was  over  and  Machlin  &  Company  had 
found  their  man.  Then,  a  little  later,  with  the  invasion 
of  the  cigarette,  there  went  up  the  new  Treadwell  fac 
tory  which  the  subtle  minded  still  attributed  to  the 
genius  of  Cyrus.  Even  before  George  and  Henry 
had  sailed  for  Australia,  the  success  of  the  house 
in  Dinwiddie  was  assured.  There  was  hardly  a 
drug  store  in  America  in  those  days  that  did 
not  offer  as  its  favourite  James's  crowning  triumph, 
the  Magnolia  cigarette.  A  few  years  later,  com 
petition  came  like  a  whirlwind,  but  in  the  be 
ginning  the  Treadwell  brand  held  the  market 


THE  TREAD  WELLS  85 

alone,  and  in  those  few  years  Cyrus's  fortune  was 
made. 

"Heard  from  George  lately?"  he  inquired,  when 
they  had  traversed,  accompanied  by  their  long  and 
narrow  shadows,  another  couple  of  blocks.  The 
tobacco  trade  had  always  been  for  him  merely  a  single 
pawn  in  the  splendid  game  he  was  playing,  but  he 
had  suspected  recently  that  James  felt  something 
approaching  a  sentiment  for  the  Magnolia  cigarette, 
and  true  to  the  Treadwell  scorn  of  romance,  he  was 
forever  trying  to  trick  him  into  an  admission  of  guilt. 

"Not  since  that  letter  I  showed  you  a  month  ago," 
answered  James.  "Too  much  competition,  that's  the 
story  everywhere.  They  are  flooding  the  market  with 
cigarettes,  and  if  it  wasn't  for  the  way  the  Magnolia 
holds  on,  we'd  be  swamped  in  little  or  no  time." 

"Well,  I  reckon  the  Claypole  would  pull  us  through," 
commented  Cyrus.  The  Claypole  was  an  old  brand 
of  plug  tobacco  with  which  the  first  Treadwell  factory 
had  started.  "  But  you're  right  about  competition.  It's 
got  to  stop  or  we'll  be  driven  clean  out  of  the  business." 

He  drew  out  his  latchkey  as  he  spoke,  for  they  had 
reached  the  corner  of  Bolingbroke  Street,  and  the 
small  dingy  house  in  which  they  lived  was  only  a  few 
doors  away.  As  they  passed  between  the  two  blos 
soming  oleanders  in  green  tubs  on  the  sidewalk,  James 
glanced  up  at  the  flat  square  roof,  and  observed 
doubtfully,  "You'll  be  getting  out  of  this  old  place 
before  long  now,  I  reckon." 

"Oh,  someday,  someday,"  answered  Cyrus.  "There'll 
be  time  enough  when  the  market  settles  and  we  can 
see  where  the  money  is  coming  from." 

Once  every  year,  in  the  spring,  James  asked  his 


86  VIRGINIA 

father  this  question,  and  once  every  year  he  received 
exactly  the  same  answer.  In  his  mind,  Cyrus  was 
always  putting  off  the  day  when  he  should  move  into 
a  larger  house,  for  though  he  got  richer  every  week, 
he  never  seemed  to  get  quite  rich  enough  to  commit 
himself  to  any  definite  change  in  his  circumstances. 
Of  course,  in  the  nature  of  things,  he  knew  that  he 
ought  to  have  left  Bolingbroke  Street  long  ago;  there 
was  hardly  a  family  still  living  there  with  whom  his 
daughter  associated,  and  she  complained  daily  of 
having  to  pass  saloons  and  barber  shops  whenever 
she  went  out  of  doors.  But  the  truth  was  that  in 
spite  of  his  answer  to  James's  annual  question,  neither 
of  them  wanted  to  move  away  from  the  old  home,  and 
each  hoped  in  his  heart  that  he  should  never  be  forced 
into  doing  so.  Cyrus  had  become  wedded  to  the 
house  as  a  man  becomes  wedded  to  a  habit,  and  since 
the  clinging  to  a  habit  was  the  only  form  of  sentiment 
of  which  he  was  capable,  he  shrank  more  and  more 
from  what  he  felt  to  be  the  almost  unbearable  wrench 
of  moving.  A  certain  fidelity  of  purpose,  the  quality 
which  had  lifted  him  above  the  petty  provincialism 
that  crippled  James,  made  the  display  of  wealth  as 
obnoxious  to  him  as  the  possession  of  it  was  agreeable. 
As  long  as  he  was  conscious  that  he  controlled  the 
industrial  future  of  Dinwiddie,  it  was  a  matter  of 
indifference  to  him  whether  people  supposed  him  to 
be  a  millionaire  or  a  pauper.  In  time  he  would  prob 
ably  have  to  change  his  way  of  living  and  put  an 
end  to  his  life-long  practice  of  saving;  but,  meanwhile, 
he  was  quite  content  to  go  on  year  after  year  mending 
the  roof  and  the  chimneys  of  the  old  house  into  which 
he  had  moved  the  week  after  his  marriage. 


THE  TREADWELLS  87 

Entering  the  hall,  he  hung  his  hat  on  the  walnut 
hat-rack  in  the  dark  corner  behind  the  door,  and 
followed  the  worn  strip  of  blue  and  red  oilcloth  which 
ran  up  the  narrow  staircase  to  the  floor  above.  Where 
the  staircase  bent  sharply  in  the  middle,  the  old- 
fashioned  mahogany  balustrade  shone  richly  in  the 
light  of  a  gas-jet  which  jutted  out  on  a  brass  stem  from 
the  wall.  Although  a  window  on  the  upper  floor  was 
opened  wide  to  the  sunset,  the  interior  of  the  house 
had  a  close  musty  smell,  as  if  it  had  been  shut  up, 
uninhabited,  for  months.  Cyrus  had  never  noticed 
the  smell,  for  his  senses,  which  were  never  acute,  had 
been  rendered  even  duller  than  usual  by  custom. 

At  the  top  of  the  stairs,  a  coloured  washerwoman, 
accompanied  by  a  bright  mulatto  boy,  who  carried 
an  empty  clothes  basket  on  his  head,  waited  humbly 
in  the  shadow  for  the  two  men  to  pass.  She  was  a 
dark  glistening  creature,  with  ox-like  eyes,  and  the 
remains  of  a  handsome  figure,  now  running  to  fat. 

"Howdy,  Marster,"  she  murmured  under  her  breath 
as  Cyrus  reached  her,  to  which  he  responded  brusquely, 
"Howdy,  Mandy,"  while  he  glanced  with  unseeing 
eyes  at  the  mulatto  boy  at  her  side.  Then,  as  he 
walked  rapidly  down  the  hall,  with  James  at  his  heels, 
the  woman  turned  back  for  a  minute  and  gazed  after 
him  with  an  expression  of  animal  submission  and 
acquiescence.  So  little  personal  to  Cyrus  and  so  free 
from  individual  consciousness  was  this  look,  that  it 
seemed  less  the  casual  glance  from  a  servant  to  a  master 
than  the  intimate  aspect  of  a  primitive  racial  attitude 
toward  life. 

At  the  end  of  the  hall,  beyond  the  open  door  of  the 
bedroom  (which  he  still  occupied  with  his  wife  from 


88  VIRGINIA 

an  ineradicable  conviction  that  all  respectable  married 
persons  slept  together  no  matter  how  uncomfortable 
they  might  be),  Cyrus  discerned  the  untidy  figure  of 
Mrs.  Tread  well  reflected  in  a  mirror  before  which  she 
stood  brushing  her  back  hair  straight  up  from  her 
neck  to  a  small  round  knot  on  the  top  of  her  head. 
She  was  a  slender,  flat-chested  woman,  whose  clothes, 
following  some  natural  bent  of  mind,  appeared 
never  to  be  put  on  quite  straight  or  properly  hooked 
and  buttoned.  It  was  as  if  she  perpetually  dressed  in 
a  panic,  forgetting  to  fasten  her  placket,  to  put  on  her 
collar  or  to  mend  the  frayed  edges  of  her  skirt.  When 
she  went  out,  she  still  made  some  spasmodic  attempts 
at  neatness;  but  Susan's  untiring  efforts  and  remon 
strances  had  never  convinced  her  that  it  mattered 
how  one  looked  in  the  house  —  except  indeed  when 
a  formal  caller  arrived,  for  whom  she  hastily  tied  a 
scarf  at  the  neck  of  her  dirty  basque  and  flung  a 
purple  wool  shawl  over  her  shoulders.  Her  spirit 
had  been  too  long  broken  for  her  to  rebel  consciously 
against  her  daughter's  authority;  but  her  mind  was 
so  constituted  that  the  sense  of  order  was  missing, 
and  the  pretty  coquetry  of  youth,  which  had  masque 
raded  once  as  the  more  enduring  quality  of  self- 
respect,  was  extinguished  in  the  five  and  thirty  peni 
tential  years  of  her  marriage.  She  had  a  small  vacant 
face,  where  the  pink  and  white  had  run  into  muddiness, 
a  mouth  that  sagged  at  the  corners  like  the  mouth 
of  a  frightened  child,  and  eyes  of  a  sickly  purple, 
which  had  been  compared  by  Cyrus  to  "sweet  violets, " 
in  the  only  compliment  he  ever  paid  her.  Thirty -five 
years  ago,  in  one  of  those  attacks  of  indiscretion  which 
overtake  the  most  careful  man  in  the  spring,  Cyrus 


THE  TREADWELLS  89 

had  proposed  to  her;  and  when  she  declined  him,  he 
had  immediately  repeated  his  offer,  animated  less  by 
any  active  desire  to  possess  her,  than  by  the  dogged 
male  determination  to  over-ride  all  obstacles,  whether 
feminine  or  financial.  And  pretty  Belinda  Boling- 
broke,  being  alone  and  unsupported  by  other  suitors 
at  the  instant,  had  entwined  herself  instinctively  around 
the  nearest  male  prop  that  offered.  It  had  been  one 
of  those  marriages  of  opposites  which  people  (ignoring 
the  salient  fact  that  love  has  about  as  much  part  in 
it  as  it  has  in  the  pursuit  of  a  spring  chicken  by  a  hawk) 
speak  of  with  sentiment  as  "a  triumph  of  love  over 
differences."  Even  in  the  first  days  of  their  engage 
ment,  there  could  be  found  no  better  reason  for  their 
marriage  than  the  meeting  of  Cyrus's  stubborn  pro 
pensity  to  have  his  way  with  the  terror  of  imaginary 
spinsterhood  which  had  seized  Belinda  in  a  temporary 
lapse  of  suitors.  Having  married,  they  immediately 
proceeded,  as  if  by  mutual  consent,  to  make  the 
worst  of  it.  She,  poor  fluttering  dove-like  creature, 
had  lost  hope  at  the  first  rebuff,  and  had  let  go  all 
the  harmless  little  sentiments  that  had  sweetened  her 
life;  while  he,  having  married  a  dove  by  choice  and 
because  of  her  doveliness,  had  never  forgiven  her 
that  she  did  not  develop  into  a  brisk,  cackling 
hen  of  the  barnyard.  As  usually  happens  in  the 
cases  where  "love  triumphs  over  differences,"  he  had 
come  at  last  to  hate  her  for  the  very  qualities  which 
had  first  caught  his  fancy.  His  ideal  woman  (though 
he  was  perfectly  unconscious  that  she  existed)  was  a 
managing  thrifty  soul,  in  a  starched  calico  dress, 
with  a  natural  capacity  for  driving  a  bargain;  and 
Life,  with  grim  humour,  had  rewarded  this  respectable 


90  VIRGINIA 

preference  by  bestowing  upon  him  feeble  and  insipid 
Belinda,  who  spent  sleepless  nights  trying  to  add 
three  and  five  together,  but  who  could  never,  to  save 
her  soul,  remember  to  put  down  the  household  expenses 
in  the  petty  cash  book.  It  was  a  case,  he  sometimes 
told  himself,  of  a  man,  who  had  resisted  temptation 
all  his  life,  being  punished  for  one  instant's  folly 
more  harshly  than  if  he  were  a  practised  libertine. 
No  libertine,  indeed,  could  have  got  himself  into  such 
a  scrape,  for  none  would  have  surrendered  so  com 
pletely  to  a  single  manifestation  of  the  primal  force. 
To  play  the  fool  once,  he  reflected  bitterly,  when  his 
brief  intoxication  was  over,  is  after  all  more  costly  than 
to  play  it  habitually.  Had  he  pursued  a  different 
pair  of  violet  eyes  every  evening,  he  would  never  have 
ended  by  embracing  the  phantom  that  was  Belinda. 

But  it  was  more  than  thirty  years  since  Cyrus 
had  taken  the  trouble  to  turn  his  unhappiness  into 
philosophy  —  for,  aided  by  time,  he  had  become 
reconciled  to  his  wife  as  a  man  becomes  reconciled 
to  a  physical  infirmity.  Except  for  that  one  eventful 
hour  in  April,  women  had  stood  for  so  little  in  his 
existence,  that  he  had  never  stopped  to  wonder  if  his 
domestic  relations  might  have  been  pleasanter  had 
he  gone  about  the  business  of  selection  as  carefully 
as  he  picked  and  chose  the  tobacco  for  his  factory. 
Even  the  streak  of  sensuality  in  his  nature  did  not 
run  warm  as  in  the  body  of  an  ordinary  mortal,  and 
his  vices,  like  his  virtues,  had  become  so  rarefied  in 
the  frozen  air  of  his  intelligence  that  they  were  no 
longer  recognizable  as  belonging  to  the  common  frail 
ties  of  men. 

"Ain't  you  dressed  yet?"  he  inquired  without  looking 


THE  TREADWELLS  01 

at  his  wife  as  he  entered  —  for  having  long  ago  lost 
his  pride  of  possession  in  her,  he  had  ceased  to  regard 
her  as  of  sufficient  importance  to  merit  the  ordinary 
civilities. 

"I  was  helping  Miss  Willy  whip  one  of  Susan's 
flounces,"  she  answered,  turning  from  the  mirror, 
with  the  hairbrush  held  out  like  a  peace  offering 
before  her.  "We  wanted  to  get  through  to-day," 
she  added  nervously,  "so  Miss  Willy  can  start  on 
Jinny  Pendleton's  dress  the  first  thing  in  the  morning." 

If  Cyrus  had  ever  permitted  himself  the  consolation 
of  doubtful  language,  he  would  probably  have  ex 
claimed  with  earnestness,  "Confound  Miss  Willy!" 
but  he  came  of  a  stock  which  condemned  an  oath, 
or  even  an  expletive,  on  its  face  value,  so  this  natural 
outlet  for  his  irritation  was  denied  him.  Instead, 
therefore,  of  replying  in  words,  he  merely  glanced 
sourly  at  the  half-open  door,  through  which  issued 
the  whirring  noise  of  the  little  dressmaker  at  her 
sewing.  Now  and  then,  in  the  intervals  when  her 
feet  left  the  pedal,  she  could  be  heard  humming  softly 
to  herself  with  her  mouth  full  of  pins. 

"Isn't  she  going?"  asked  Cyrus  presently,  while 
he  washed  his  hands  at  the  washstand  in  one  corner 
and  dried  them  on  a  towel  which  Belinda  had  elab 
orately  embroidered  in  red.  Peering  through  the 
crack  of  the  door  as  he  put  the  question,  he  saw  Miss 
Willy  hurriedly  pulling  basting  threads  out  of  a 
muslin  skirt,  and  the  fluttering  bird-like  motions  of 
her  hands  increased  the  singular  feeling  of  repulsion 
with  which  she  inspired  him.  Though  he  was  aware 
that  she  was  an  entirely  harmless  person,  and,  more 
over,  that  her  "days"  supplied  the  only  companion- 


92  VIRGINIA 

ship  his  wife  really  enjoyed,  he  resented  angrily  the 
weeks  of  work  and  gossip  which  the  little  seamstress 
spent  under  his  roof.  Put  two  gabbling  women  like 
that  together  and  you  could  never  tell  what  stories 
would  be  set  going  about  you  before  evening!  A  sus 
picion,  unfortunately  too  well  founded,  that  his  wife 
had  whimpered  out  her  heart  to  the  whirring  accom 
paniment  of  Miss  Willy's  machine,  had  caused  him 
once  or  twice  to  rise  in  his  authority  and  forbid  the 
dressmaker  the  house;  but,  in  doing  so,  he  had  reckoned 
without  the  strength  which  may  lie  in  an  unscrupulous 
weakness.  Belinda,  who  had  never  fought  for  any 
thing  else  in  her  life,  refused  absolutely  to  give  up 
her  dressmaker.  "If  I  can't  see  her  here,  I'll  go 
to  her  house,"  she  had  said,  and  Cyrus  had  yielded 
at  last  as  the  bully  always  yields  before  the  frenzied 
violence  of  his  victim. 

After  a  hasty  touch  to  the  four  round  flat  curls  on 
her  forehead,  Mrs.  Treadwell  turned  from  the  bureau 
with  her  habitually  hopeless  air,  and  slipped  her  thin 
arms  into  the  tight  sleeves  of  a  black  silk  basque  which 
she  took  up  from  the  bed. 

"Did  you  see  Oliver  when  you  came  in?"  she  asked. 
"He  was  in  here  looking  for  you  a  few  minutes  ago." 

"No,  I  didn't  see  him,  but  I'm  going  to.  He's 
got  to  give  up  this  highfaluting  nonsense  of  his  if 
he  expects  me  to  support  him.  There's  one  thing 
the  fellow's  got  to  understand,  and  that  is  that  he 
can  choose  between  his  precious  stuff  and  his  bread 
and  meat.  Before  I  give  him  a  job,  he'll  have  to  let 
me  see  that  he  is  done  with  all  this  business  of  play- 
writing." 

A  frightened  look  came  into  his  wife's  face,  and 


THE  TREAD  WELLS  93 

indifferently  glancing  at  her  as  he  finished,  he  was 
arrested  by  something  enigmatical  and  yet  familiar 
in  her  features.  A  dim  vision  of  the  way  she  had 
looked  at  him  in  the  early  days  of  their  marriage 
floated  an  instant  before  him. 

"Do  you  think  he  wants  to  do  that?"  she  asked, 
with  a  little  sound  as  if  she  had  drawn  her  breath  so 
sharply  that  it  whistled.  What  in  thunder  was  the 
matter  with  the  woman?  he  wondered  irritably.  Of 
course  she  was  a  fool  about  the  scamp  —  all  the 
women,  even  Susan,  lost  their  heads  over  him  —  but, 
after  all,  why  should  it  make  any  difference  to  her 
whether  he  wrote  plays  or  took  freight  orders,  as  long 
as  he  managed  to  feed  himself? 

"Well,  I  don't  reckon  it  has  come  to  a  question  of 
what  he  wants,"  he  rejoined  shortly. 

"But  the  boy's  heart  is  bound  up  in  his  ambition," 
urged  Belinda,  with  an  energy  he  had  witnessed  in 
her  only  once  before  in  her  life,  and  that  was  on  the 
occasion  of  her  historic  defence  of  the  seamstress. 

For  a  moment  Cyrus  stared  at  her  with  attention, 
almost  with  curiosity.  Then  he  opened  his  lips  for  a 
crushing  rejoinder,  but  thinking  better  of  his  impulse, 
merely  repeated  dryly,  "His  heart?"  before  he  turned 
toward  the  door.  On  the  threshold  he  looked  back 
and  added,  "The  next  time  you  see  him,  tell  him  I'd 
like  a  word  with  him." 

Left  alone  in  her  room,  Mrs.  Treadwell  sat  down 
in  a  rocking-chair  by  the  window,  and  clasped  her 
hands  tightly  in  her  lap  with  a  nervous  gesture  which 
she  had  acquired  in  long  periods  of  silent  waiting  on 
destiny.  Her  mental  attitude,  which  was  one  of  secret, 
and  usually  passive,  antagonism  to  her  husband,  had 


94  VIRGINIA 

stamped  its  likeness  so  indelibly  upon  her  features, 
that,  sitting  there  in  the  wan  light,  she  resembled 
a  woman  who  suffers  from  the  effects  of  some  slow  yet 
deadly  sickness.  Lacking  the  courage  to  put  her 
revolt  into  words,  she  had  allowed  it  to  turn  inward 
and  embitter  the  hidden  sources  of  her  being.  In  the 
beginning  she  had  asked  so  little  of  life  that  the  denial 
of  that  little  by  Fate  had  appeared  niggardly  rather 
than  tragic.  A  man  —  any  man  who  would  have 
lent  himself  gracefully  as  an  object  of  worship  — 
would  have  been  sufficient  material  for  the  building 
of  her  happiness.  Marriage,  indeed,  had  always 
appeared  to  her  so  desirable  as  an  end  in  itself,  entirely 
apart  from  the  personal  peculiarities  or  possibilities 
of  a  husband,  that  she  had  awakened  almost  with  sur 
prise  one  morning  to  the  knowledge  that  she  was  miser 
able.  It  was  not  so  much  that  her  romance  had  met 
with  open  disaster  as  that  it  had  simply  faded  away. 
This  gradual  fading  away  of  sentiment,  which  she 
had  accepted  at  the  time  as  only  one  of  the  inevitable 
stages  in  the  slow  process  of  emotional  adjustment, 
would  perhaps  have  made  but  a  passing  impression 
on  a  soul  to  whom  every  other  outlet  into  the  world 
had  not  been  closed  by  either  temperament  or  tradition. 
But  love  had  been  the  one  window  through  which  light 
could  enter  her  house  of  Life;  and  when  this  darkened, 
her  whole  nature  had  sickened  and  grown  morbid. 
Then  at  last  all  the  corroding  bitterness  in  her  heart 
had  gathered  to  a  canker  which  ached  ceaselessly, 
like  a  physical  sore,  in  her  breast. 

"He  saw  I'd  taken  to  Oliver  —  that's  why  he's 
anxious  to  spite  him,"  she  thought  resentfully  as  she 
stared  with  unseeing  eyes  out  into  the  gray  twilight. 


THE  TREAD  WELLS  95 

"It's  all  just  to  worry  me,  that's  why  he  is  doing  it. 
He  knows  I  couldn't  be  any  fonder  of  the  boy  if  he 
had  come  of  my  own  blood."  And  she  who  had  been 
a  Bolingbroke  set  her  thin  lips  together  with  the 
only  consciousness  of  superiority  to  her  husband  that 
she  had  ever  known  —  the  secret  consciousness  that 
she  was  better  born.  Out  of  the  wreck  of  her  entire 
life,  this  was  the  floating  spar  to  which  she  still  clung 
with  a  sense  of  security,  and  her  imagination,  by  long 
concentration  upon  the  support  that  it  offered,  had 
exaggerated  its  importance  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
other  props  among  which  it  had  its  place.  Like  its 
imposing  symbol,  the  Saint  Memin  portrait  of  the 
great  Archibald  Bolingbroke,  which  lent  distinction, 
by  its  very  inappropriateness,  to  the  wall  on  which 
it  hung,  this  hidden  triumph  imparted  a  certain  pa 
thetic  dignity  to  her  manner. 

"That's  all  on  earth  it  is,"  she  repeated  with  a  kind 
of  smothered  fierceness.  But,  even  while  the  words 
were  on  her  lips,  her  face  changed  and  softened, 
for  in  the  adjoining  room  a  voice,  full  of  charm,  could 
be  heard  saying:  "Sewing  still,  Miss  Willy?  Don't 
you  know  that  you  are  guilty  of  an  immoral  act 
when  you  work  overtime?" 

"I'm  just  this  minute  through,  Mr.  Oliver,"  answered 
the  seamstress  in  fluttering  tones.  "As  soon  as  I 
fold  this  skirt,  I'm  going  to  quit  and  put  on  my 
bonnet." 

A  few  more  words  followed,  and  then  the  door 
opened  wider  and  Oliver  entered  —  with  his  ardent 
eyes,  his  irresolute  mouth,  and  his  physical  charm 
which  brought  an  air  of  vital  well-being  into  the  de 
pressing  sultriness  of  the  room. 


96  VIRGINIA 

"I  missed  you  downstairs,  Aunt  Belinda.  You 
haven't  a  headache,  I  hope,"  he  said,  and  there  was 
the  same  caressing  kindness  in  his  tone  which  he  had 
used  to  the  dressmaker.  It  was  as  if  his  sympathy, 
like  his  charm,  which  cost  him  so  little  because  it  was 
the  gift  of  Nature,  overflowed  in  every  casual  expres 
sion  of  his  temperament. 

"No,  I  haven't  a  headache,  dear,"  replied  Mrs. 
Tread  well,  putting  up  her  hand  to  his  cheek  as  he 
leaned  over  her.  "Your  uncle  is  waiting  for  you  in 
the  library,  so  you'd  better  go  down  at  once,"  she 
added,  catching  her  breath  as  she  had  done  when 
Cyrus  first  spoke  to  her  about  Oliver. 

"Have  you  any  idea  what  it  means?  Did  he  tell 
you?" 

"Yes,  he  wants  to  talk  to  you  about  business." 

"The  deuce  he  does!  Well,  if  that's  it,  I'd  be 
precious  glad  to  get  out  of  it.  You  don't  suppose  I 
could  cut  it,  do  you?  Susan  is  going  to  take  me  to  the 
Pendletons'  after  supper,  and  I'd  like  to  run  upstairs 
now  and  make  a  change." 

"No,  you'd  better  go  down  to  him.  He  doesn't 
like  to  be  kept  waiting." 

"All  right,  then  —  since  you  say  so." 

Meeting  the  dressmaker  on  the  threshold,  he  forgot 
to  answer  her  deprecating  bow  in  his  eagerness  to 
have  the  conversation  with  Cyrus  over  and  done  with. 

"I  declare,  he  does  startle  a  body  when  you  ain't 
used  to  him,"  observed  Miss  Willy,  with  a  bashful 
giggle.  She  was  a  diminutive,  sparrow-like  creature, 
with  a  natural  taste  for  sick-rooms  and  death-beds,  and 
an  inexhaustible  fund  of  gossip.  As  Mrs.  Treadwell, 
for  once,  did  not  respond  to  her  unspoken  invitation 


THE  TREADWELLS  97 

to  chat,  she  tied  her  bonnet  strings  under  her  sharp 
little  chin,  and  taking  up  her  satchel  went  out  again, 
after  repeating  several  times  that  she  would  be  "back 
the  very  minute  Mrs.  Pendleton  was  through  with 
her."  A  few  minutes  later,  Belinda,  still  seated  by 
the  window,  saw  the  shrunken  figure  ascend  the  area 
steps  and  cross  the  dusty  street  with  a  rapid  and 
buoyant  step,  as  though  she,  also,  plain,  overworked 
and  penniless,  was  feeling  the  delicious  restlessness 
of  the  spring  in  her  blood.  "I  wonder  what  on  earth 
she's  got  to  make  her  skip  like  that,"  thought  Belinda 
not  without  bitterness.  "I  reckon  she  thinks  she's 
just  as  important  as  anybody,"  she  added  after  an 
instant,  touching,  though  she  was  unaware  of  it,  the 
profoundest  truth  of  philosophy.  "She's  got  nothing 
in  the  world  but  herself,  yet  I  reckon  to  her  that  is 
everything,  even  if  it  doesn't  make  a  particle  of 
difference  to  anybody  else  whether  she  is  living  or 
dead." 

Her  eyes  were  still  on  Miss  Willy,  who  stepped  on 
briskly,  swinging  her  bag  joyously  before  her,  when 
the  sound  of  Cyrus's  voice,  raised  high  in  anger,  came 
up  to  her  from  the  library.  A  short  silence  followed; 
then  a  door  opened  and  shut  quickly,  and  rapid 
footsteps  passed  up  the  staircase  and  along  the  hall 
outside  of  her  room.  While  she  waited,  overcome 
by  the  nervous  indecision  which  attacked  her  like 
palsy  whenever  she  was  forced  to  take  a  definite 
action,  Susan  ran  up  the  stairs  and  called  her  name 
in  a  startled  and  shaking  voice. 

"Oh,  mother,  father  has  quarrelled  dreadfully  with 
Oliver  and  ordered  him  out  of  the  house!," 


CHAPTER  V 

OLIVER,    THE    ROMANTIC 

AN  HOUR  later  Oliver  stood  before  the  book-shelves 
in  his  room,  wrapping  each  separate  volume  in  news 
papers.  Downstairs  in  the  basement,  he  knew,  the 
family  were  at  supper,  but  he  had  vowed,  in  his 
splendid  scorn  of  material  things,  that  he  would  never 
eat  another  morsel  under  Cyrus's  roof.  Even  when 
his  aunt,  trembling  in  every  limb,  had  brought  him 
secretly  from  the  kitchen  a  cup  of  coffee  and  a  plate 
of  waffles,  he  had  refused  to  unlock  his  door  and  permit 
her  to  enter.  "I'll  come  out  when  I  am  ready  to 
leave,"  he  had  replied  to  her  whispered  entreaties. 

It  was  a  small  room,  furnished  chiefly  by  book 
shelves,  which  were  still  unfinished,  and  with  a  depress 
ing  view  from  a  single  window  of  red  tin  roofs  and 
blackened  chimneys.  Above  the  chimneys  a  narrow 
band  of  sky,  spangled  with  a  few  stars,  was  visible 
from  where  Oliver  stood,  and  now  and  then  he  stopped 
in  his  work  and  gazed  up  at  it  with  an  exalted  and 
resolute  look.  Sometimes  a  thin  shred  of  smoke 
floated  in  from  the  kitchen  chimney,  and  hung,  as  if 
drawn  and  held  there  by  some  magnetic  attraction, 
around  the  kerosene  lamp  on  a  corner  of  the  wash- 
stand.  The  sultriness  of  the  night,  which  was  op 
pressive  even  in  the  street,  was  almost  stifling  in  the 
little  room  with  its  scant  western  exposure. 

98 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  90 

But  the  flame  burning  in  Oliver's  breast  had  purged 
away  such  petty  considerations  as  those  for  material 
comforts.  He  had  risen  above  the  heat,  above  the 
emptiness  of  his  pockets,  above  the  demands  of  his 
stomach.  It  was  a  matter  of  complete  indifference 
to  him  whether  he  slept  in  a  house  or  out  of  doors? 
whether  he  ate  or  went  hungry.  His  exaltation  was 
so  magnificent  that  while  it  lasted  he  felt  that  he 
had  conquered  the  physical  universe.  He  was  strong! 
He  was  free !  And  it  was  characteristic  of  his  sanguine 
intellect  that  the  future  should  appear  to  him  at  the 
instant  as  something  which  existed  not  beyond  him, 
but  actually  within  his  grasp.  Anger  had  liberated 
his  spirit  as  even  art  had  not  done;  and  he  felt  that  all 
the  blood  in  his  body  had  rushed  to  his  brain  and 
given  him  the  mastery  over  circumstances.  He  forgot 
yesterday  as  easily  as  he  evaded  to-day  and  subju 
gated  to-morrow.  The  past,  with  its  starved  ambi 
tions,  its  tragic  failures,  its  blighting  despondencies, 
melted  away  from  him  into  obscurity;  and  he  remem 
bered  only  the  brief  alternating  hours  of  ecstasy 
and  of  accomplishment.  With  his  wind-blown,  flame- 
like  temperament,  oscillating  in  the  heat  of  youth 
between  the  inclinations  he  miscalled  convictions,  he 
was  still,  though  Cyrus  had  disowned  him,  only  a 
romantic  variation  from  the  Tread  well  stock.  Some 
where,  in  the  depths  of  his  being,  the  essential  Treadwell 
persisted.  He  hated  Cyrus  as  a  man  hates  his  own 
weakness;  he  revolted  from  materialism  as  only  a 
materialist  in  youth  revolts. 

A  knock  came  at  his  door,  and  pausing,  with  a 
volume  of  Heine  still  unwrapped  in  his  hand,  he 
waited  in  silence  until  his  visitor  should  retire  down 


100  VIRGINIA 

the  stairs.  But  instead  of  Mrs.  Treadwell's  trembling 
tones,  he  heard,  after  a  moment,  the  firm  and  energetic 
voice  of  Susan. 

"Oliver,  I  must  speak  to  you.  If  you  won't  unlock 
your  door,  I'll  sit  down  on  the  steps  and  wait  until 
you  come  out." 

"I'm  packing  my  books.     I  wish  you'd  go  away, 

SBJ 
usan. 

"I  haven't  the  slightest  intention  of  going  away 

until  I've  talked  with  you "  and,  then,  being 

one  of  those  persons  who  are  born  with  the  natural 
gift  of  their  own  way,  she  laid  her  hand  on  the  door 
knob  while  Oliver  impatiently  turned  the  key  in  the 
lock. 

"Since  you  are  here,  you  might  as  well  come  in 
and  help,"  he  remarked  none  too  graciously,  as  he 
made  way  for  her  to  enter. 

"Of  course  I'll  help  you  —  but,  oh,  Oliver,  what 
in  the  world  are  you  going  to  do?" 

"I  haven't  thought.  I'm  too  busy,  but  I'll  manage 
somehow." 

"Father  was  terrible.  I  heard  him  all  the  way 
upstairs  in  my  room.  But,"  she  looked  at  him  a 
little  doubtfully,  "don't  you  think  he  will  get  over  it?" 

"He  may,  but  I  shan't.  I'd  rather  starve  than  live 
under  a  petty  tyranny  like  that?" 

"I  know,"  she  nodded,  and  he  saw  that  she  under 
stood  him.  It  was  wonderful  how  perfectly,  from 
the  very  first  instant,  she  had  understood  him.  She 
grasped  things,  too,  by  intelligence,  not  by  intuition, 
and  he  found  this  refreshing  in  an  age  when 
the  purely  feminine  was  in  fashion.  Never  had  he 
seen  a  finer  example  of  young,  buoyant,  conquering 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  101 

womanhood  —  of  womanhood  freed  from  the  con 
sciousness  and  the  disabilities  of  sex.  "She's  not  the 
sort  of  girl  a  man  would  lose  his  head  over,"  he  re 
flected;  "there's  too  little  of  the  female  about  her  — 
she's  as  free  from  coquetry  as  she  is  from  the  folderol 
of  sentimentality.  She's  a  free  spirit,  and  God  knows 
how  she  ever  came  out  of  the  Treadwells."  Her 
beauty  even  wasn't  of  the  kind  that  usually  goes  by 
the  name.  He  didn't  suppose  there  were  ten  men  in 
Dinwiddie  who  would  turn  to  look  back  at  her  — 
but,  by  Jove,  if  she  hadn't  beauty,  she  had  the  char 
acter  that  lends  an  even  greater  distinction.  She 
looked  as  if  she  could  ride  Life  like  a  horse  —  could 
master  it  and  tame  it  and  break  it  to  the  bridle. 

"It's  amazing  how  you  know  things,  Susan,"  he 
said,  "and  you've  never  been  outside  of  Dinwiddie." 

"But  I've  wanted  to,  and  I  sometimes  think  the 
wanting  teaches  one  more  than  the  going." 

He  thought  over  this  for  an  instant,  and  then,  as  if 
the  inner  flame  which  consumed  him  had  leaped 
suddenly  to  the  surface,  he  burst  out  joyously:  "I've 
come  to  the  greatest  decision  of  my  life  in  this  last 
hour,  Susan." 

Her  eyes  shone.  "You  mean  you've  decided  not  to 
do  what  father  asks  no  matter  what  happens?" 

"I've  decided  not  to  accept  his  conditions  —  no 
matter  what  happens,"  he  answered. 

"He  was  in  earnest,  then,  about  wanting  you  to 
give  up  writing?" 

"So  much  in  earnest  that  he  would  give  me  a  job 
only  on  those  terms." 

"And  you  declined  absolutely?" 

"Of  course  I  declined  absolutely." 


102  VIRGINIA 

"But  how  will  you  live,  Oliver?" 

"Oh,  I  can  easily  make  thirty  dollars  a  month 
by  reviewing  German  books  for  New  York  papers, 
and  I  dare  say  I  can  manage  to  pull  through  on  that. 
I'll  have  to  stay  in  Dinwiddie,  of  course,  because  I 
couldn't  live  anywhere  else  on  nearly  so  little,  and, 
besides,  I  shouldn't  be  able  to  buy  a  ticket  away." 

"That  will  be  twenty  dollars  for  your  board,"  said 
the  practical  Susan,  "and  you  will  have  to  make  ten 
dollars  a  month  cover  all  your  other  expenses.  Do 
you  think  you  can  do  it?" 

"I've  got  to.  Better  men  have  done  worse  things, 
haven't  they?  Better  men  have  done  worse  things 
and  written  great  plays  while  they  were  about  them." 

"I  believe  Mrs.  Peachey  would  let  you  have  a 
back  room  and  board  for  that,"  pursued  Susan.  "But 
it  will  cost  you  something  to  get  your  books  moved 
and  the  shelves  put  up  there." 

"As  soon  as  I  get  through  this  I'll  go  over  and  see 
her.  Oh,  I'm  free,  Susan,  I'm  happy!  Did  you  ever 
see  an  absolutely  happy  man  before?  I  feel  as  if  a 
weight  had  rolled  off  my  shoulders.  I'm  tired  —  dog- 
tired  of  compromise  and  commercialism  and  all  the 
rest  of  it.  I've  got  something  to  say  to  the  world, 
and  I'll  go  out  and  make  my  bed  in  the  gutter  before 
I'll  forfeit  the  opportunity  of  saying  it.  Do  you  know 
what  that  means,  Susan?  Do  you  know  what  it  is 
to  be  willing  to  give  your  life  if  only  you  can  speak 
out  the  thing  that  is  inside  of  you?"  The  colour 
in  his  face  mounted  to  his  forehead,  while  his  eyes 
grew  black  with  emotion.  In  the  smoky  little  room, 
Youth,  with  its  fierce  revolts,  its  impassioned  egoism, 
its  inextinguishable  faith  in  itself,  delivered  its  ulti- 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  103 

matum  to  Life.  "I've  got  to  be  true  to  myself, 
Susan !  A  man  who  won't  starve  for  his  ambition  isn't 
worth  his  salt,  is  he?  And,  besides,  the  best  work  is  all 
done  not  in  plenty,  but  in  poverty  —  the  most  perfect 
art  has  grown. from  the  poorest  soil.  If  I  were  to 
accept  Uncle  Cyrus's  offer,  I'd  grow  soft  to  the  core 
in  a  month  and  be  of  no  more  use  than  a  rotten  apple." 

His  conviction  lent  a  golden  ring  to  his  voice, 
and  so  winning  to  Susan  was  the  impetuous  flow  of 
his  words,  that  she  felt  herself  swept  away  from  all 
the  basic  common  sense  of  her  character.  She  saw 
his  ambition  as  clearly  as  he  saw  it;  she  weighed  his 
purpose,  as  he  weighed  it,  in  the  imaginary  scales 
of  his  judgment;  she  accepted  his  estimate  of  his 
powers  as  passionately  as  he  accepted  it. 

"Of  course  you  mustn't  give  up,  Oliver;  you 
couldn't,"  she  said. 

"You're  right,  I  couldn't." 

"If  you  can  get  steady  reviewing,  I  believe  you 
can  manage,"  she  resumed.  "Living  in  Dinwiddie 
costs  really  so  very  little."  Her  voice  thrilled  sud 
denly.  "It  must  be  beautiful  to  have  something  that 
you  feel  about  like  this.  Oh,  I  wish  I  were  you, 
Oliver!  I  wish  a  thousand  times  I  were  you!" 

Withdrawing  his  eyes  from  the  sky  at  which  he 
had  been  gazing,  he  turned  to  look  at  her  as  if  her 
words  had  arrested  him.  "You're  a  dear  girl,"  he 
answered  kindly,  "and  I  think  all  the  world  of  you." 
As  he  spoke  he  thought  again  what  a  fine  thing  it  would 
be  for  the  man  who  could  fall  in  love  with  her.  "It 
would  be  the  best  thing  that  could  happen  to  any 
man  to  marry  a  woman  like  that,"  he  reflected; 
"she'd  keep  him  up  to  the  mark  and  never  let  him 


104  VIRGINIA 

grow  soft.  Yes,  it  would  be  all  right  if  only  one  could 
manage  to  fall  in  love  with  her  —  but  I  couldn't. 
She  might  as  well  be  a  rose-bush  for  all  the  passion 
she'd  ever  arouse  in  me."  Then  his  charming  egoism 
asserted  itself,  and  he  said  caressingly:  "I  don't 
believe  I  could  stand  Dinwiddie  but  for  you,  Susan." 

She  smiled  back  at  him,  but  there  was  a  limpid 
clearness  in  her  look  which  made  him  feel  that  she 
had  seen  through  him  while  he  was  thinking.  This 
clearness,  with  its  utter  freedom  from  affectation  or 
sentimentality,  embarrassed  him  by  its  unlikeness 
to  all  the  attributes  he  mentally  classified  as  feminine. 
To  look  straight  seemed  to  him  almost  as  unwomanly 
as  to  throw  straight,  and  Susan  would,  doubtless, 
be  quite  capable  of  performing  either  of  these  difficult 
feats.  He  liked  her  fine  brow  under  the  short  fringe, 
which  he  hated,  and  he  liked  the  arched  bridge  of 
her  nose  and  the  generous  curve  of  her  mouth.  Yet 
had  he  stopped  to  analyze  her,  he  would  probably 
have  said  that  the  woman  spirit  in  her  was  expressed 
through  character  rather  than  through  emotion  —  a 
manifestation  disconcerting  to  one  whose  vision  of 
her  sex  was  chiefly  as  the  irresponsible  creature  of 
drama.  The  old  shackles  —  even  the  shackles  of  that 
drama  whose  mistress  and  slave  woman  had  been  — 
were  out  of  place  on  the  spirit  which  was  incarnated 
in  Susan.  Amid  the  cramping  customs  of  the  period, 
she  moved  large,  free,  and  simple,  as  though  she  walked 
already  in  the  purer  and  more  bracing  air  of  the  future. 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you,"  she  said,  stooping  to 
pick  up  a  newspaper  from  a  pile  on  the  floor.  "Here, 
let  me  wrap  that  Spinoza.  I'm  afraid  the  back  will 
come  off  if  you  aren't  careful." 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  105 

"Of  course  a  man  has  to  work  out  his  own  career," 
he  replied,  as  he  handed  over  the  volume.  "I  doubt, 
when  it  comes  to  that,  if  anybody  can  be  of  much  help 
to  another  where  his  life's  work  is  concerned.  The 
main  thing,  after  all,  is  not  to  get  in  one's  way,  not 
to  cripple  one's  energy.  I've  got  to  be  free  —  that's 
all  there  is  about  it.  I've  got  to  belong  to  myself 
every  instant." 

"And  you  know  already  just  what  you  are  going 
to  do?  About  your  writing,  I  mean." 

"Absolutely.  I've  ideas  enough  to  fill  fifty  ordinary 
lifetimes.  I'm  simply  seething  with  them.  Why,  that 
box  over  there  in  the  corner  is  full  of  plays  that  would 
start  a  national  drama  if  the  fool  public  had  sense 
enough  to  see  what  they  are  about.  The  trouble 
is  that  they  don't  want  life  on  the  stage;  they  want 
a  kind  of  theatrical  wedding-cake.  And,  by  Jove, 
they  get  it!  Any  dramatist  who  tries  to  force  people 
to  eat  bread  and  meat  when  they  are  crying  for  sugar 
plums  may  as  well  prepare  to  starve  until  the  public 
begins  to  suffer  from  acute  indigestion.  Then,  if  he 
isn't  dead  —  or,  perhaps,  if  he  is  —  his  hour  will 
come,  and  he  will  get  his  reward  either  here  or  in 
heaven." 

"So  you'll  go  on  just  the  same  and  wait  until  they're 
ready  for  you?"  asked  Susan,  laughing  from  sheer 
pride  in  him.  "You'll  never,  never  cheapen  yourself, 
Oliver?"  For  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  was  face 
to  face  with  an  intellectual  passion,  and  she  felt  al 
most  as  if  she  herself  were  inspired. 

"Never.  I've  made  my  choice.  I'll  wait  half  a 
century  if  need  be,  but  I'll  wait.  I  know,  too,  what 
I  am  talking  about,  for  I  could  do  the  other  thing  as 


106  VIRGINIA 

easily  as  I  could  eat  my  dinner.  I've  got  the  trick  of 
it.  I  could  make  a  fortune  to-morrow  if  I  were  to 
lose  my  intellectual  honesty  and  go  in  simply  for  the 
making  of  money.  Why,  I  am  a  Treadwell,  after  all, 
just  as  you  are,  my  dear  cousin,  and  I  could  commer 
cialize  the  stage,  I  haven't  a  doubt,  as  successfully 
as  your  father  has  commercialized  the  railroad.  It's 
in  the  blood  —  the  instinct,  you  know  —  and  the  only 
thing  that  has  kept  it  down  in  me  is  that  I  sincerely  — 
yes,  I  sincerely  and  enthusiastically  believe  that  I 
am  a  genius.  If  I  didn't,  do  you  think  I'd  stick  at 
this  starvation  business  another  fortnight?  That's 
the  whole  story,  every  blessed  word  of  it,  and  I'm 
telling  you  because  I  feel  expansive  to-night  —  I'm 
such  a  tremendous  egoist,  you  know,  and  because  — 
well,  because  you  are  Susan." 

"I  think  I  understand  a  little  bit  how  you  feel," 
replied  Susan.  "Of  course,  I'm  not  a  genius,  but 
I've  thought  sometimes  that  I  should  almost  be 
willing  to  starve  if  only  I  might  go  to  college." 

Checking  the  words  on  his  lips,  he  looked  at  her 
with  sympathy.  "It's  a  shame  you  can't,  but  I 
suppose  Uncle  Cyrus  won't  hear  of  it." 

"I  haven't  asked  him,  but  I  am  going  to  do  it. 
I  am  so  afraid  of  a  refusal  —  and,  of  course,  he'll 
refuse  —  that  I've  lacked  the  courage  to  speak  of  it." 
"Good  God!  Why  is  one  generation  left  so  abso 
lutely  at  the  mercy  of  the  other?"  he  demanded, 
turning  back  to  the  strip  of  sky  over  the  roof.  "It 
makes  a  man  rage  to  think  of  the  lives  that  are  spoiled 
for  a  whim.  Money,  money  —  curse  it!  —  it  all 
comes  to  that  in  the  end.  Money  makes  us  and 
destroys  us." 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  107 

"Do  you  remember  what  father  said  to  you  the 
other  night  —  that  you  would  come  at  last  to 
what  you  called  the  property  idea  and  be  exactly 
like  James  and  himself?" 

"If  I  thought  that,  I'd  go  out  and  hang  myself. 
I  can  understand  a  man  selling  his  soul  for  drink, 
though  I  rarely  touch  a  drop,  or  for  women,  though 
I've  never  bothered  about  them,  but  never,  not  even 
in  the  last  extremity,  for  money." 

A  door  creaked  somewhere  on  the  second  floor  and 
a  minute  afterwards  the  slow  and  hesitating  feet  of 
Mrs.  Treadwell  were  heard  ascending  the  stairs. 

"Let  her  come  in  just  a  moment,  Oliver,"  begged 
Susan,  and  her  tone  was  full  of  the  impatient,  slightly 
arrogant  affection  with  which  she  regarded  her  mother. 
There  was  little  sympathy  and  less  understanding  be 
tween  them,  but  on  Susan's  side  there  was  a  feeling 
of  protective  tenderness  which  was  almost  maternal. 
This  tenderness  was  all  her  own,  while  the  touch  of 
arrogance  in  her  manner  belonged  to  the  universal 
inability  of  youth  to  make  allowances  for  age. 

"Oh,  well,"  said  Oliver  indifferently;  and  going  to 
the  door,  he  opened  it  and  stood  waiting  for  Mrs. 
Treadwell  to  enter. 

"I  came  up  to  ask  if  you  wouldn't  eat  something, 
dear?"  she  asked.  "But  I  suppose  Susan  has  brought 
you  your  supper?" 

"He  won't  touch  a  morsel,  mother;  it  is  useless  to 
ask  him.  He  is  going  away  just  as  soon  as  we  have 
finished  packing." 

"But  where  is  he  going?  I  didn't  know  that  he 
had  any  place  to  go  to." 

"Oh,  a  man  can  always  find  a  place  somewhere." 


108  VIRGINIA 

"How  can  you  take  it  so  lightly,  Susan,"  protested 
Mrs.  Tread  well,  beginning  to  cry. 

"That's  the  only  sensible  way  to  take  it,  isn't  it, 
Oliver?"  asked  Susan,  gaily. 

"Don't  get  into  a  fidget  about  me,  Aunt  Belinda," 
said  Oliver,  pushing  the  pile  of  newspapers  out  of  her 
way,  while  she  sat  down  nervously  on  the  end  of  a 
packing-case  and  wiped  her  eyes  on  the  fringe  of  her 
purple  shawl.  The  impulsive  kindness  with  which 
he  had  spoken  to  her  a  few  hours  before  had  vanished 
from  his  tone,  and  left  in  its  place  an  accent  of  irri 
tation.  His  sympathy,  which  was  never  assumed, 
resulted  so  entirely  from  his  mood  that  it  was  prac 
tically  independent  of  the  person  or  situation  which 
appeared  to  inspire  it.  There  were  moments  when, 
because  of  a  sensation  of  mental  or  physical  well-being, 
he  overflowed  with  a  feeling  of  tenderness  for  the 
beggar  at  the  crossing;  and  there  were  longer  periods, 
following  a  sudden  despondency,  when  the  suffering 
of  his  closest  friend  aroused  in  him  merely  a  sense  of 
personal  outrage.  So  complete,  indeed,  was  his  ab 
sorption  in  himself,  that  even  his  philosophy  was 
founded  less  upon  an  intellectual  conception  of  the 
universe  than  it  was  upon  an  intense  preoccupation 
with  his  own  personality. 

"But  you  don't  mean  that  you  are  going  for  good?  — 
that  you'll  never  come  back  to  see  Susan  and  me 
again?"  whimpered  his  aunt,  while  her  sagging  mouth 
trembled. 

"You  can't  expect  me  to  come  back  after  the  things 
Uncle  Cyrus  has  said  to  me." 

A  look  so  bitter  that  it  was  almost  venomous  crept 
into  Mrs.  TreadwelFs  face*  "He  just  did  it  to  worry 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  109 

me,  Oliver.  He  has  done  everything  he  could  think 
of  to  worry  me  ever  since  he  persuaded  me  to  marry 
him.  I  sometimes  believe,"  she  added,  gloating  over 
the  idea  like  a  decayed  remnant  of  the  aristocratic 
spirit,  "that  he  has  always  been  jealous  of  me  because 
I  was  born  a  Bolingbroke." 

To  Oliver,  who  had  not  like  Susan  grown  accus 
tomed  through  constant  repetition  to  Mrs.  Treadwell's 
delusion,  this  appeared  so  fresh  a  view  of  Cyrus's  char 
acter,  that  it  caught  his  interest  even  in  the  midst 
of  his  own  absorbing  perplexities.  Until  he  saw 
Susan's  head  shake  ominously  over  her  mother's 
shoulder,  it  did  not  occur  to  him  that  his  aunt,  whom 
he  supposed  to  be  without  imagination,  had  created 
this  consoling  belief  out  of  her  own  mental  vacancy. 

"Oh,  he  wanted  to  worry  me  all  right,  there's  no 
doubt  about  that,"  he  replied. 

"He  hasn't  spoken  to  me  when  he  could  help  it 
for  twenty  years,"  pursued  his  aunt,  who  was  so 
possessed  by  the  idea  of  her  own  relation  to  her  hus 
band  that  she  was  incapable  of  dwelling  upon  any 
other. 

"I  wouldn't  talk  about  it,  mother,  if  I  were  you," 
said  Susan  with  resolute  cheerfulness. 

"I  don't  know  why  I  shouldn't  talk  about  it.  It's 
all  I've  got  to  talk  about,"  returned  Mrs.  Tread  well 
peevishly;  and  she  added  with  smothered  resentment, 
"Even  my  children  haven't  been  any  comfort  to  me 
since  they  were  little.  They've  both  turned  against 
me  because  of  the  way  their  father  treats  me.  James 
hardly  ever  has  so  much  as  a  word  to  say  to  me." 

"But  I  do,  mother.  How  can  you  say  such  an. 
unkind  thing  to  me?" 


110  VIRGINIA 

"You  never  do  the  things  that  I  want  you  to.  You 
know  I'd  like  you  to  go  out  and  enjoy  yourself  and 
have  attention  as  other  girls  do." 

"You  are  disappointed  because  I'm  not  a  belle 
like  Abby  Goode  or  Jinny  Pendleton,"  said  Susan 
with  the  patience  that  is  born  of  a  basic  sense  of 
humour.  "But  I  couldn't  help  that,  could  I?" 

"Any  girl  in  my  day  would  have  felt  badly  if  she 
wasn't  admired,"  pursued  Mrs.  Treadwell  with  the 
venom  of  the  embittered  weak,  "but  I  don't  believe 
you'd  care  a  particle  if  a  man  never  looked  at  you 
twice." 

"If  one  never  looked  at  me  once,  I  don't  see  why 
you  should  want  me  to  be  miserable  about  it,"  was 
Susan's  smiling  rejoinder;  "and  if  the  girls  in  your 
day  couldn't  be  happy  without  admiration,  they 
must  have  been  silly  creatures.  I've  a  life  of  my  own 
to  live,  and  I'm  not  going  to  let  my  happiness 
depend  on  how  many  times  a  man  looks  at  me." 
In  the  clear  light  of  her  ridicule,  the  spectre  of  spin- 
sterhood,  which  was  still  an  object  of  dread  in  the 
Dinwiddie  of  the  eighties,  dissolved  into  a  shadow. 

"Well,  we've  about  finished,  I  believe,"  remarked 
Oliver,  closing  the  case  over  which  he  was  stooping, 
and  devoutly  thanking  whatever  beneficent  Powers 
had  not  created  him  a  woman.  "I'll  send  for  these 
sometime  to-morrow,  Aunt  Belinda." 

"You'd  just  as  well  spend  the  night,"  urged  Mrs. 
Treadwell  stubbornly.     "He  need  never  know  of  it." 
"But  I'd  know  of  it  —  that's  the  great  thing  — 
and  I'd  never  forget  it." 

Rising  unsteadily  from  the  box,  she  stood  with  the 
ends  of  her  purple  shawl  clutched  tightly  over  her 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  111 

flat  bosom.  "Then  you'll  wait  just  a  minute.  I've 
got  something  downstairs  I'd  like  to  give  you,"  she 
said. 

"Why,  of  course,  but  won't  you  let  me  fetch  it?" 

"You'd  never  find  it,"  she  answered  mysteriously, 
and  hurried  out  while  he  held  the  door  open  to  light 
her  down  the  dark  staircase. 

When  her  tread  was  heard  at  last  on  the  landing 
below,  Susan  glanced  at  the  books  that  were  still 
left  on  the  shelves.  "I'll  pack  the  rest  for  you  to 
morrow,  Oliver,  and  your  clothes,  too.  Have  you  any 
money?" 

"A  little  left  from  selling  my  watch  in  New  York. 
My  clothes  don't  amount  to  much.  I've  got  them  all 
in  that  bag,  but  I'll  leave  my  books  in  your  charge 
until  I  can  find  a  place  for  them." 

"I'll  take  good  care  of  them.  O  Oliver!"  her  face 
grew  disturbed.  "I  forgot  all  about  my  promise  to 
Virginia  that  I'd  bring  you  to  see  her  to-night." 

"Well,  I've  no  time  to  meet  girls  now,  of  course, 
but  that  doesn't  mean  that  I'm  not  awfully  knocked 
up  about  it." 

"I  hate  so  to  disappoint  her." 

"She  won't  think  of  it  twice,  the  beauty!" 

"But  she  will.  I'm  sure  she  will.  Hush!  Mother 
is  coming." 

As  he  turned  to  the  door,  it  opened  slowly  to  admit 
the  figure  of  his  aunt,  who  was  panting  heavily  from 
her  hurried  ascent  of  the  stairs.  Her  ill-humour 
toward  Susan  had  entirely  disappeared,  for  the  only 
resentment  she  had  ever  harboured  for  more  than  a 
few  minutes  was  the  lifelong  one  which  she  had 
borne  her  husband. 


112  VIRGINIA 

"It  was  not  in  the  place  where  I  had  put  it,  so  I 
thought  one  of  the  servants  had  taken  it,"  she  ex 
plained.  "Mandy  was  alone  in  my  room  to-day  while 
I  was  at  dinner." 

In  her  hand  she  held  a  small  pasteboard  box  bearing 
a  jeweller's  imprint,  and  opening  this,  she  took  out  a 
roll  of  money  and  counted  out  fifty  dollars  on  the 
top  of  a  packing-case.  "I've  saved  this  up  for  six 
months,"  she  said.  "It  came  from  selling  some  silver 
forks  that  belonged  to  the  Bolingbrokes,  and  I  always 
felt  easier  to  think  that  I  had  a  little  laid  away  that  he 
had  nothing  to  do  with.  From  the  very  day  that  I 
married  him,  he  was  always  close  about  money,"  she 
added. 

The  sordid  tragedy  —  not  of  poverty,  but  of  mean 
ness  —  was  in  the  gesture  with  which  she  gathered 
up  the  notes  and  pressed  them  into  his  shrinking 
hands.  And  yet  Cyrus  Treadwell  was  a  rich  man  — 
the  richest  man  living  in  Dinwiddie!  Oliver  under 
stood  now  why  she  was  crushed  —  why  she  had  become 
the  hopeless  victim  of  the  little  troubles  of  life.  "From 
the  very  day  of  our  marriage,  he  was  always  close 
about  money." 

"I  had  three  dozen  forks  and  spoons  in  the  begin 
ning,"  she  resumed  as  if  there  were  no  piercing  sig 
nificance  in  the  fact  she  stated  so  simply,  "but  I've 
sold  them  all  now,  one  or  two  at  a  time,  when  I  needed 
a  little  money  of  my  own.  He  has  always  paid  the 
bills,  but  he  never  gave  me  a  cent  in  my  life  to  do  as 
I  pleased  with." 

"I  can't  take  it  from  you,  Aunt  Belinda.  It 
would  burn  my  fingers." 

"It's  mine.     I've  got  a  right  to  do  as  I  choose 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  113 

with  it,"  she  persisted  almost  passionately,  "and 
I'd  rather  give  it  to  you  than  buy  anything  in  the 
world."  Something  in  her  face  —  the  look  of  one 
who  has  risen  to  a  generous  impulse  and  finds 
happiness  in  the  sacrifice  —  checked  the  hand  with 
which  he  was  thrusting  the  money  away  from  him. 
He  was  deeply  touched  by  her  act;  it  was  useless  for 
him  to  pretend  either  to  her  or  to  himself  that  she  had 
not  touched  him.  The  youth  in  him,  unfettered, 
strong,  triumphant,  pitied  her  because  she  was  no 
longer  young;  the  artist  in  him  pitied  her  because 
she  was  no  longer  beautiful.  Without  these  two 
things,  or  at  least  one  of  these  two,  what  was  life  worth 
to  a  woman?" 

"I'll  take  it  on  condition  that  you'll  let  me  pay  it 
back  as  soon  as  I  get  out  of  debt  to  Uncle  Cyrus,"  he 
said  in  obedience  to  Susan's  imploring  nod. 

To  this  she  agreed  after  an  ineffectual  protest. 
"You  needn't  think  about  paying  it  back  to  me," 
she  insisted;  "I  haven't  anything  to  spend  money  on 
now,  so  it  doesn't  make  much  difference  whether  I 
have  any  or  not.  I  can  help  you  a  little  more  after 
a  while,"  she  finished  with  enthusiasm.  "I'm  raising 
a  few  squabs  out  in  the  back  yard,  and  Meadows  is 
going  to  buy  them  as  soon  as  they  are  big  enough  to 
eat." 

An  embarrassment  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
act  which  produced  it  held  him  speechless  while  he 
gazed  at  her.  He  felt  at  first  merely  a  sense  of  physical 
revolt  from  the  brutality  of  her  self -revelation  —  from 
the  nakedness  to  which  she  had  stripped  the  horror 
of  her  marriage  under  the  eyes  of  her  daughter. 
Nothing,  not  even  the  natural  impulse  to  screen  one's 


114  VIRGINIA 

soul  from  the  gaze  of  the  people  with  whom  one  lived, 
had  prevented  the  appalling  indignity  of  this 
exposure.  The  delusion  that  it  is  possible  for  a 
woman  by  mere  virtue  of  being  a  woman  to  suffer 
in  sweetness  and  silence,  evaporated  as  he  looked  at 
her.  He  had  believed  her  to  be  a  nonentity,  and  she 
was  revealing  an  inner  life  as  intense,  as  real,  as 
acutely  personal  as  his  own.  A  few  words  of  casual 
kindness  and  he  had  made  a  slave  of  her.  He 
regretted  it.  He  was  embarrassed.  He  was  sorry. 
He  wished  to  heaven  she  hadn't  brought  him  the 
money  —  and  yet  in  spite  of  his  regret  and  his  em 
barrassment,  he  was  profoundly  moved.  It  occurred  to 
him  as  he  took  it  from  her  how  easy  it  would  have 
been  for  Cyrus  to  have  subjugated  and  satisfied  her  in 
the  beginning.  All  it  needed  was  a  little  kindness, 
the  cheapest  virtue,  and  the  tragedy  of  her  ruined 
soul  might  have  been  averted.  To  make  allowances! 
Ah,  that  was  the  philosophy  of  human  relations  in  a 
word!  If  men  and  women  would  only  stop  judging 
each  other  and  make  allowances! 

"Well,  I  shan't  starve  just  yet,  thanks  to  you, 
Aunt  Belinda,"  he  said  cheerfully  enough  as  he  thrust 
the  notes  into  his  pocket.  It  was  a  small  thing,  after 
all,  to  make  her  happy  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  pride. 
Pride  was  not,  he  remembered,  included  among  the 
Christian  virtues,  and,  besides,  as  he  told  himself 
the  next  instant,  trifling  as  the  sum  was,  it  would  at 
least  tide  him  over  financially  until  he  received  the 
next  payment  for  his  reviewing.  "I'd  better  go,  it's 
getting  late,"  he  said  with  a  return  of  his  old  gaiety, 
while  he  bent  over  to  kiss  her.  He  was  half  ashamed 
of  the  kiss  —  not  because  he  was  self-conscious  about 


OLIVER,  THE  ROMANTIC  115 

kissing,  since  he  had  long  since  lost  that  mark  of 
provincialism  —  but  because  of  the  look  of  passionate 
gratitude  which  glowed  in  her  face.  Gratitude  always 
made  him  uncomfortable.  It  was  one  of  the  things 
he  was  forever  evading  and  yet  forever  receiving.  He 
hated  it,  he  had  never  in  his  life  done  anything  to 
deserve  it,  but  he  could  never  escape  it. 

"Good-bye,  Susan."  His  lips  touched  hers,  and 
though  he  was  moving  only  a  few  streets  away, 
the  caress  contained  all  the  solemnity  of  a  last  parting. 
Words  wouldn't  come  when  he  searched  for  them, 
and  the  bracing  sense  of  power  he  had  felt  half 
an  hour  ago  was  curiously  mingled  now  with  an  ener 
vating  tenderness.  He  was  still  confident  of  himself, 
but  he  became  suddenly  conscious  that  these  women 
were  necessary  to  his  happiness  and  his  success,  that  his 
nature  demanded  the  constant  daily  tonic  of  their 
love  and  service.  He  understood  now  the  primal 
necessity  of  woman,  not  as  an  individual,  but  as 
an  incentive  and  an  appendage  to  the  dominant  per 
sonality  of  man. 

"Send  for  me  if  you  need  me,"  said  Susan,  resting 
her  loving  eyes  upon  him;  "and,  Oliver,  please  promise 
me  to  be  very  careful  about  money." 

"I'll  be  careful,  never  fear!"  he  replied  with  a 
laugh,  as  he  took  up  his  bag  and  opened  the  door. 
A  few  minutes  later,  when  he  was  leaving  the  house, 
he  reflected  that  the  fifty  dollars  in  his  pocket  would 
keep  life  in  him  for  a  considerable  time  in  Dinwiddie. 


CHAPTER  VI 

A    TREADWELL   IN    REVOLT 

YORK  STREET,  in  which  Mrs.  Peachey  lived  and 
supplied  the  necessaries  of  life  to  a  dozen  boarders,  ran 
like  a  frayed  seam  of  gentility  between  the  pros 
perous  and  the  impoverished  quarters  of  Dinwiddie; 
and  in  order  to  reach  it,  Oliver  was  obliged  to  pass 
the  rectory,  where,  though  he  did  not  see  her,  Virginia 
sat  in  stiffly  starched  muslin  on  the  old  horsehair 
sofa.  The  fragrance  of  honeysuckle  floated  to  his 
nostrils  from  the  dim  garden,  but  so  absorbed  was 
he  in  the  engrossing  problems  of  the  moment,  that 
only  after  he  had  passed  the  tower  of  the  church 
did  he  remember  that  the  house  behind  him  sheltered 
the  girl  who  reminded  him  of  one  of  the  adorable 
young  virgins  of  Perugino.  For  an  instant  he  per 
mitted  himself  to  dwell  longingly  on  the  expression  of 
gentle  goodness  that  looked  from  her  face;  but  this 
memory  proved  so  disturbing,  that  he  put  it  obdurately 
away  from  him  while  he  returned  to  the  prudent 
consideration  of  the  fifty  dollars  in  his  pocket.  The 
appeal  of  first  love  had  been  almost  as  urgent  to  him 
as  to  Virginia;  but  the  emotion  which  had  visited 
both  alike  had  affected  each  differently,  and  this 
difference  was  due  to  the  fundamental  distinction 
between  woman,  for  whom  love  is  the  supreme 
preoccupation  of  being,  and  man,  to  whom  it  is 

116 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  117 

at  best  a  partial  manifestation  of  energy.  To  the 
woman  nothing  else  really  mattered;  to  the  man  at  least 
a  dozen  other  pursuits  mattered  very  nearly  as  much. 

The  sultriness  of  the  weather  dampened  his  body, 
but  not  his  spirits,  and  as  he  walked  on,  carrying 
his  heavy  bag,  along  York  Street,  his  consciousness 
of  the  tremendous  importance  to  the  world  of  his 
decision  exhilarated  him  like  a  tonic.  He  had  freed 
himself  from  Cyrus  and  from  commercialism  at  a 
single  blow,  and  it  had  all  been  as  easy  as  talking! 
The  joke  about  starvation  he  had  of  course  indulged 
in  merely  for  the  exquisite  pleasure  of  arousing 
Susan.  He  wasn't  going  to  starve;  nobody  was  going 
to  starve  in  Dinwiddie  on  thirty  dollars  a  month, 
and  there  was  no  doubt  in  the  world  of  his  ability  to 
make  that  much  by  his  reviewing.  It  was  all  simple 
enough.  What  he  intended  to  do  was  to  write  the 
national  drama  and  to  practise  economy. 

He  had,  indeed,  provided  for  everything  in  his 
future,  he  was  to  discover  a  little  later,  except  for  the 
affable  condescension  of  Mrs.  Peachey  toward  the 
profession  of  letters.  Cyrus's  antagonism  he  had 
attributed  to  the  crass  stupidity  of  the  commercial 
mind;  but  it  was  a  blow  to  him  to  encounter  the  same 
misconception,  more  discreetly  veiled,  in  a  woman 
of  the  charm  and  the  character  of  Mrs.  Peachey. 
Bland,  plump,  and  pretty,  she  received  the  modest 
avowal  of  his  occupation  with  the  smiling  skepticism 
peculiar  to  a  race  whose  genius  has  been  chiefly  military. 

"I  understand  —  it  is  very  interesting,"  she  ob 
served  sweetly.  "But  what  do  you  do  besides  — 
what  do  you  do,  I  mean,  for  a  living?" 

Here  it  was  again,  this  fatuous  intolerance!  this 


118  VIRGINIA 

incomprehensible  provincialism !  And  the  terrible  part 
of  it  was  that  he  had  suddenly  the  sensation  of  being 
overwhelmed  by  the  weight  of  it,  of  being  smothered 
under  a  mountain  of  prejudice.  The  flame  of  his 
anger  against  Cyrus  went  out  abruptly,  leaving  him 
cold.  It  was  the  world  now  against  which  he  rebelled. 
He  felt  that  the  whole  world  was  provincial. 

"I  shall  write  reviews  for  a  New  York  paper," 
he  answered,  trying  in  vain  to  impress  her  by  a  touch 
of  literary  hauteur.  At  the  moment  it  seemed  to 
him  that  he  could  cheerfully  bear  anything  if  they 
would  only  at  least  pretend  to  take  him  seriously. 
What  appalled  him  was  not  the  opposition,  but  the 
utter  absence  of  comprehension.  And  he  could  never 
hope  to  convince  them!  Even  if  he  were  to  write 
great  plays,  they  would  still  hold  as  obstinately  by 
their  assumption  that  the  writing  of  plays  did  not 
matter  —  that  what  really  mattered  was  to  create 
and  then  to  satisfy  an  inordinate  appetite  for  tobacco. 
This  was  authentic  success,  and  by  no  illegitimate 
triumph  of  genius  could  he  persuade  an  industrial 
country  that  he  was  as  great  a  man  as  his  uncle.  The 
smiling  incredulity  in  Mrs.  Peachey's  face  ceased  to 
be  individual  and  became  a  part  of  the  American 
attitude  toward  the  native-born  artist.  This  attitude, 
he  admitted,  was  not  confined  to  Dinwiddie,  since 
it  was  national.  He  had  encountered  it  in  New  York, 
but  never  had  the  destructive  force  of  it  impressed 
him  as  it  did  on  the  ripe  and  charming  lips  of  the 
woman  before  him.  In  that  illuminating  instant 
he  understood  why  the  American  consciousness 
in  literature  was  still  unawakened,  why  the  cre 
ative  artist  turned  manufacturer,  why  the  original 


A  TREAD  WELL  IN  REVOLT       119 

thinker  bent  his  knee  in  the  end  to  the  tin  gods  of 
convention. 

Her  eyes  —  beautiful  as  the  eyes  of  all  happy  women 
are  beautiful  —  dwelt  on  him  kindly  while  he  strug 
gled  to  explain  his  mission.  All  the  dread  of  the 
unusual,  all  the  inherited  belief  in  the  sanctity  of 
fixed  opinions,  all  the  passionate  distrust  of  ideas  that 
have  not  stood  the  test  of  centuries  —  these  things 
which  make  for  the  safety  and  the  permanence  of  the 
racial  life,  were  in  the  look  of  motherly  indulgence 
with  which  she  regarded  him.  She  had  just  risen 
from  a  rocking-chair  on  the  long  porch,  where  honest 
Tom  sat  relating  ponderous  war  anecdotes  to  an 
attentive  group  of  boarders;  and  beyond  her  in  the 
dimly  lighted  hall  he  could  see  the  wide  old  staircase 
climbing  leisurely  into  the  mysterious  silence  of  the 
upper  storeys. 

"I  have  a  small  room  at  the  back  that  I  might 
rent  to  you,"  she  said  hesitatingly  after  a  pause. 
"I  am  afraid  you  will  find  it  warm  in  summer,  as  it 
is  just  under  the  roof  and  has  a  western  exposure, 
but  I  hardly  think  I  could  do  better  for  you  at  the 
price  you  are  able  to  pay.  I  understood  that  you 
intended  to  live  with  your  uncle,"  she  added  in  a 
burst  of  enthusiasm.  "My  husband  has  always  been 
one  of  his  greatest  admirers." 

The  mention  of  Cyrus  was  like  a  spur  to  Oliver's 
ambition,  and  he  realized  with  gratitude  that  it  was 
merely  his  sensibility,  not  his  resolution,  which  had 
been  shaken. 

"I'll  take  the  room,"  he  returned,  ignoring  what 
she  had  said  as  well  as  what  she  had  implied  about 
Cyrus.  Then  as  she  tripped  ahead  of  him,  he  entered 


120  VIRGINIA 

the  dismantled  hall,  filled  with  broken  pieces  of  fine 
old  furniture,  and  ascended  the  stairs  as  far  as  the 
third  storey.  When  she  turned  a  loosened  doorknob 
and  passed  before  him  into  the  little  room  at  the  back, 
he  saw  first  of  all  the  narrow  window,  with  its  torn 
green  shade,  beyond  which  clustered  a  blur  of  silvery 
foliage  in  the  midst  of  red  roofs  and  huddled  chimneys. 
From  this  hilltop,  he  could  look  down  unseen  on  that 
bit  of  the  universal  life  which  was  Dinwiddie.  He 
could  watch  the  town  at  work  and  at  play;  he  could 
see  those  twenty-one  thousand  souls  either  moved  as 
a  unit  by  the  secret  forces  which  ignore  individuality, 
or  separated  and  enclosed  by  that  impenetrable  wall 
of  personality  which  surrounded  each  atom  among 
them.  He  could  follow  the  divisions  of  class  and  the 
still  deeper  divisions  of  race  as  they  were  symbolized 
in  the  old  brick  walls,  overgrown  with  young  grasses, 
which  girdled  the  ancient  gardens  in  High  Street. 
From  the  dazzling  glimpses  of  white  muslin  under 
honeysuckle  arbours,  to  the  dusky  forms  that  swarmed 
like  spawn  in  the  alleys,  the  life  of  Dinwiddie  loved, 
hated,  enjoyed,  and  suffered  beneath  him.  And 
over  this  love  and  this  hatred,  this  enjoyment 
and  this  suffering,  there  presided  —  an  outward  and 
visible  sign  of  the  triumph  of  industrialism  —  the 
imposing  brick  walls  of  the  new  Treadwell  tobacco 
factory. 

A  soft  voice  spoke  in  his  ear,  and  turning,  he  looked 
into  the  face  of  Mrs.  Peachey,  whom  he  had  almost 
forgotten. 

"You  will  find  the  sun  warm  in  the  afternoon, 
I  am  afraid,"  she  murmured,  still  with  her  manner 
of  pleasantly  humouring  him  which  he  found  later 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  121 

to  be  an  unconscious  expression  of  her  half  maternal, 
wholly  feminine  attitude  toward  his  sex. 

"Oh,  I  daresay  it  will  be  all  right,"  he  responded. 
"I  shall  work  so  hard  that  I  shan't  have  time  to 
bother  about  the  weather." 

Leaving  the  window,  he  gazed  around  the  little 
room  with  an  impulse  of  curiosity.  Who  had  lived 
here  before  him?  A  clerk?  A  travelling  salesman? 
Perhaps  one  of  the  numerous  indigent  gentlewomen 
that  formed  so  large  and  so  important  a  part  of  the 
population  of  Dinwiddie?  The  walls  were  smeared 
with  a  sickly  blue  wash,  and  in  several  places  there 
were  the  marks  left  from  the  pictures  of  the  preceding 
lodger.  An  old  mahogany  bureau,  black  with  age  and 
ill  usage,  stood  crosswise  in  the  corner  behind  the 
door,  and  reflected  in  the  dim  mirror  he  saw  his  own 
face  looking  back  at  him.  A  film  of  dust  lay  over 
everything  in  the  room,  over  the  muddy  blue  of  the 
walls,  over  the  strip  of  discoloured  matting  on  the 
floor,  over  the  few  fine  old  pieces  of  furniture,  fallen 
now  into  abject  degradation.  The  handsome  French 
bed,  placed  conveniently  between  door  and  window, 
stood  naked  to  the  eyes,  with  its  cheap  husk  mattress 
rolled  half  back,  and  its  bare  slats,  of  which  the 
two  middle  ones  were  tied  together  with  rope, 
revealing  conspicuously  its  descent  from  elegance 
into  squalor.  As  he  saw  it,  the  room  was  the 
epitome  of  tragedy,  yet  in  the  centre  of  it,  on 
one  of  the  battered  and  broken-legged  Heppel- 
white  chairs,  sat  Mrs.  Peachey,  rosy,  plump,  and 
pretty,  regarding  him  with  her  slightly  quizzical 
smile.  "Yes,  life,  of  course,  is  sad  if  you  stop  to 
think  about  it,"  her  smile  seemed  to  assure  him; 


VIRGINIA 

"but  the  main  thing,  after  all,  is  to  be  happy  in 
spite  of  it." 

"Do  you  wish  to  stay  here  to-night?"  she  asked, 
seeing  that  he  had  put  down  his  bag. 

"If  you  will  let  me.  But  I  am  afraid  it  will  be 
inconvenient." 

She  shook  her  head.  "Not  if  you  don't  mind  the 
dust.  The  room  has  been  shut  up  for  weeks,  and  the 
dust  is  so  dreadful  in  the  spring.  The  servants  have 
gone  out,"  she  added,  "but  I'll  bring  you  some  sheets 
for  your  bed,  and  you  can  fill  your  pitcher  from  the 
spout  at  the  end  of  the  hall.  Only  be  careful  not  to 
stumble  over  the  step  there.  It  is  hard  to  see  when 
the  gas  is  not  lit." 

"You  won't  object  to  my  putting  shelves  around 
the  walls?  "  he  asked,  while  she  pushed  the  mattress  into 
place  with  the  light  and  condescending  touch  of  one 
who  preserves  the  aristocratic  manner  not  only  in 
tragedy,  but  even  in  toil.  It  was,  indeed,  her  peculiar 
distinction,  he  came  to  know  afterward,  that  she 
worked  as  gracefully  as  other  women  played. 

"Couldn't  you  find  room  enough  without  them?" 
she  inquired  while  her  gaze  left  the  mattress  and 
travelled  dubiously  to  the  mantelpiece.  "It  seems  a 
pity  for  you  to  go  to  any  expense  about  shelves, 
doesn't  it?" 

"Oh,  they  won't  cost  much.  I'll  do  the  work  myself, 
and  I'll  do  it  in  the  mornings  when  it  won't  disturb 
anybody.  I  daresay  I'll  have  to  push  that  bed  around 
a  bit  in  order  to  make  space." 

Something  in  his  vibrant  voice  —  so  full  of  the 
richness  and  the  buoyant  energy  of  youth  —  made 
her  look  at  him  as  she  might  have  looked  at  one  of 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  123 

her  children,  or  at  that  overgrown  child  whom  she 
had  married.  And  just  as  she  had  managed  Tom  all 
his  life  by  pretending  to  let  him  have  his  way,  so  she 
proceeded  now  by  instinct  to  manage  Oliver.  "You 
dear  boy!  Of  course  you  may  turn  things  upside 
down  if  you  want  to.  Only  wait  a  few  days  until 
you  are  settled  and  have  seen  how  you  like  it." 

Then  she  tripped  out  with  her  springy  step,  which 
had  kept  its  elasticity  through  war  and  famine,  while 
Oliver,  gazing  after  her,  wondered  whether  it  was 
philosophy  or  merely  a  love  of  pleasure  that  sustained 
her?  Was  it  thought  or  the  absence  of  thought  that 
produced  her  wonderful  courage? 

He  heard  her  tread  on  the  stairs;  then  the  sound 
passed  to  the  front  hall;  and  a  minute  later  there 
floated  up  the  laughter  with  which  the  assembled 
boarders  received  her.  Closing  the  door,  which  she 
had  left  open,  he  turned  back  to  the  window  and 
stared  from  his  hilltop  down  on  the  red  roofs  of  Din- 
widdie.  White  as  milk,  the  moonlight  lay  on  the 
brick  wall  at  the  foot  of  the  garden,  and  down  the 
gradual  hill  rows  of  chimneys  were  outlined  against 
the  faintly  dappled  sky  in  the  west.  In  the  next 
yard  a  hollow  tree  looked  as  if  it  were  cut  out  of 
silver,  and  beneath  its  boughs,  which  drooped  into 
the  alley,  he  could  see  the  huddled  figure  of  an  aged 
negress  who  had  fallen  asleep  on  a  flagstone.  So 
still  was  the  night  that  the  very  smoke  appeared  to 
hang  suspended  above  the  tops  of  the  chimneys,  as 
though  it  were  too  heavy  to  rise  and  yet  too  light  to 
float  downward  toward  the  motionless  trees.  Under 
the  pale  beams  the  town  lost  its  look  of  solidity  and 
grew  spectral.  Nothing  seemed  to  hold  it  to  the 


124  VIRGINIA 

earth  except  the  stillness  which  held  the  fallen  flowers 
of  the  syringa  there  also.  Even  the  church  towers 
showed  like  spires  of  thistledown,  and  the  winding 
streets,  which  ran  beside  clear  walls  and  dark  shining 
gardens,  trailed  off  from  the  ground  into  the  silvery 
air.  Only  the  black  bulk  of  the  Treadwell  factory 
beside  the  river  defied  the  magic  of  the  moon's  rays 
and  remained  a  solid  reminder  of  the  brevity  of  all 
enchantment. 

Gradually,  while  Oliver  waited  for  Mrs.  Peachey's 
return,  he  ceased  to  think  of  the  furniture  in  his  room; 
he  ceased  to  think  even  of  the  way  in  which  he  should 
manage  to  do  his  work,  and  allowed  his  mind  to  dwell, 
almost  with  a  feeling  of  ecstasy,  on  the  memory  of 
Virginia.  He  saw  the  mist  of  little  curls  on  her  tem 
ples,  her  blue  eyes,  with  their  good  and  gentle  expres 
sion,  and  the  look  of  radiant  happiness  which  played 
like  light  over  her  features.  The  beauty  of  the  night 
acted  as  a  spur  to  his  senses.  He  wanted  companion 
ship.  He  wanted  the  smile  and  the  touch  of  a  woman. 
He  wanted  to  fall  in  love  with  a  girl  who  had  blue 
eyes  and  a  mouth  like  a  flower! 

"It  wouldn't  take  me  ten  minutes  to  become  a  fool 
about  her,"  he  thought.  "Confound  this  moonlight, 
anyhow.  It's  making  an  idiot  of  me." 

Like  many  persons  of  artistic  sensibility,  he  had 
at  times  the  feeling  that  his  imagination  controlled 
his  conduct,  and  under  the  sharp  pressure  of  it  now, 
he  began  to  picture  what  the  end  would  be  if  he  were 
to  fling  himself  headlong  in  the  direction  where  his 
desires  were  leading  him.  If  he  could  only  let  himself 
go!  If  he  could  only  defy  the  future!  If  he  could 
only  forget  in  a  single  crisis  that  he  was  a  Treadwell! 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  125 

"If  I  were  the  right  sort,  I  suppose  I'd  rush  in 
and  make  her  fall  in  love  with  me,  and  then  marry 
her  and  let  her  starve,"  he  thought.  "But  somehow 
I  can't.  I'm  either  not  enough  of  a  genius  or  not 
enough  of  a  Tread  well.  When  it  comes  to  starving 
a  woman  in  cold  blood,  my  conscience  begins  to  balk. 
There's  only  one  thing  it  would  balk  at  more  violently, 
and  that  is  starving  my  work.  That's  what  Uncle 
Cyrus  would  like  —  nothing  better.  By  Jove !  the 
way  he  looked  when  he  had  the  nerve  to  make  that 
proposition!  And  I  honestly  believe  he  thought  I 
was  going  to  agree  to  it.  I  honestly  believe  he  was 
surprised  when  I  stood  out  against  him.  He's  a 
downright  idiot,  that's  what  is  the  matter  with  him. 
Why,  it  would  be  a  crime,  nothing  less  than  a  crime, 
for  me  to  give  up  and  go  hunting  after  freight  orders. 
Any  ninny  can  do  that.  James  can  do  that  —  but 
he  couldn't  see,  he  positively  couldn't  see  that  I'd 
be  wasted  at  it." 

The  vision  of  Cyrus  had  banished  the  vision  of 
Virginia,  and  leaving  the  window,  Oliver  began  walking 
rapidly  back  and  forth  between  the  washstand  and 
the  bare  bedstead.  The  fire  of  his  ambition,  which 
opposition  had  fanned  into  a  blaze,  had  never  burned 
more  brightly  in  his  heart  than  it  did  at  that  instant. 
He  felt  capable  not  only  of  renouncing  Virginia,  but 
of  reforming  the  world.  While  he  walked  there,  he 
dedicated  himself  to  art  as  exclusively  as  Cyrus  had 
ever  dedicated  himself  to  money —  since  Nature,  who 
had  made  the  individual,  had  been  powerless  to 
eradicate  this  basic  quality  of  the  type.  A  Treadwell 
had  always  stood  for  success,  and  success  meant 
merely  seeing  but  one  thing  at  a  time  and  seeing  that 


126  VIRGINIA 

thing  at  every  instant.  It  meant  to  Cyrus  and  to 
James  the  thought  of  money  as  absolutely  as  it  meant 
to  Oliver  the  thought  of  art.  The  way  to  it  was  the 
same,  only  the  ideas  that  pointed  the  way  were  differ 
ent.  To  Cyrus  and  to  James,  indeed,  as  to  all  Tread- 
wells  everywhere,  the  idea  was  hardly  an  idea  at  all, 
since  it  had  been  crystallized  by  long  usage  into  a 
fact.  The  word  "success"  (and  what  was  success 
except  another  name  for  the  universal  Treadwell 
spirit?)  invariably  assumed  the  image  of  the  dollar 
in  the  mind  of  Cyrus,  while  to  Oliver,  since  his  thinking 
was  less  carefully  coordinated,  it  was  without  shape 
or  symbol.  Pacing  the  dusty  floor,  with  the  pale 
moonlight  brooding  like  a  flock  of  white  birds  over 
the  garden,  the  young  man  would  have  defined  the 
word  as  embracing  all  the  lofty  aspirations  in  the 
human  soul.  It  was  the  hour  when  youth  scaled 
the  heights  and  wrested  the  divine  fire  from  the 
heavens.  At  the  moment  he  was  less  an  individual 
than  the  embodied  age  of  twro-and-twenty.  He  was  in 
tellect  in  adolescence  —  intellect  finding  its  strength  — 
intellect  in  revolt  against  the  tyranny  of  industrialism. 

The  staircase  creaked  softly,  and  following  a  knock 
at  the  door,  Mrs.  Peachey  entered  with  her  arms  full 
of  bedclothes. 

"I  am  so  sorry  I  kept  you  waiting,  Mr.  Treadwell, 
but  I  was  obliged  to  stop  to  speak  to  a  caller.  Oh, 
thank  you.  Do  you  really  know  how  to  make  up  a 
bed?  How  very  clever  of  you!  I'm  sure  Mr.  Peachey 
couldn't  do  such  a  thing  if  his  life  depended  upon  it. 
Men  are  so  helpless  that  it  surprises  me  —  it  really 
does  —  when  they  know  how  to  do  anything.  Oh,  of 
course,  you  have  lived  about  the  world  so  much  that 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  127 

you  have  had  to  learn  how  to  manage.  And  you've 
been  abroad?  How  very  interesting!  Some  day  when 
I  have  the  time  you  must  tell  me  about  it.  Not  that 
I  should  ever  care  to  go  myself,  but  I  love  to  hear  other 
people  talk  about  their  travels.  Professor  Trimble  — 
he  lived  over  there  a  great  many  years  —  gave  a  talk 
before  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  of  our  church,  and 
everybody  said  it  was  quite  as  instructive  as  going 
one's  self.  And  then,  too,  one  escaped  all  the  misery 
of  seasickness." 

All  the  time  she  was  busily  spreading  his  bed, 
while  he  assisted  her  with  what  she  described  to  her 
husband  afterward  as  "the  most  charming  manner, 
just  as  if  he  enjoyed  it."  This  charming  manner, 
which  was  the  outward  expression  of  an  inborn  kindli 
ness,  won  her  entirely  to  his  side  before  the  bed- 
making  was  over.  That  any  one  so  frank  and  pleasant, 
with  such  nice  boyish  eyes,  and  so  rich  a  colour, 
should  prove  untrustworthy,  was  unbelievable  to  that 
part  of  her  which  ruled  her  judgment.  And  since 
this  ruling  part  was  not  reason,  but  instinct,  she 
possessed,  perhaps,  as  infallible  a  guide  to  opinions 
as  ever  falls  to  the  lot  of  erring  humanity.  "I  know 
he's  all  right.  Don't  ask  me  how  I  know  it,  Mr. 
Peachey,"  she  observed  while  she  brushed  her  hair 
for  the  night;  "I  don't  know  how  I  know  it,  but  I 
do  know  it." 

Oliver,  meanwhile,  had  thrown  off  his  coat,  and 
settled  down  to  work  under  the  flickering  gas,  at  the 
end  of  the  mantelpiece.  Inspiration  had  seized  him 
while  he  helped  Mrs.  Peachey  make  his  bed,  and  his 
"charming  manner,"  which  had  at  first  been  natural 
enough,  had  become  at  last  something  of  an  effort. 


128  VIRGINIA 

He  was  writing  the  second  act  of  a  play  in  which  he 
meant  to  supplant  the  pretty  shams  of  the  stage  by 
the  aspect  of  sober  reality.  The  play  dealt  with 
woman  —  with  the  new  woman  who  has  grown  so 
old  in  the  last  twenty  years  —  with  the  woman  whose 
past  is  a  cross  upon  which  she  crucifies  both  herself 
and  the  public.  Like  most  men  of  twenty-two,  he 
was  convinced  that  he  understood  all  about  women, 
and  like  most  men  of  any  age,  he  was  under  the  impres 
sion  that  women  acted,  thought,  and  felt,  not  as 
individuals,  but  as  a  sex.  The  classic  phrases,  "women 
are  like  that,"  and  "women  think  so  queerly  about 
things,"  were  on  his  lips  as  constantly  as  if  he  were 
an  average  male  and  not  an  earnest-minded  student 
of  human  nature.  But  while  the  average  male  applies 
general  principles  loosely  and  almost  unconsciously, 
with  Oliver  the  habit  was  the  result  of  a  distinctly 
formulated  philosophy.  He  had,  as  he  would  probably 
have  put  it,  a  feeling  for  reality,  and  the  stage  appeared 
to  him,  on  the  whole,  to  be  the  most  effective  vehicle 
for  revealing  the  universe  to  itself.  If  he  was  not  a 
genius,  he  possessed  the  unconquerable  individualism 
of  genius;  and  he  possessed,  also,  a  cleverness  which 
could  assume  the  manner  of  genius  without  apparent 
effort.  His  ability,  which  no  one  but  Cyrus  had  ever 
questioned,  may  not  have  been  of  the  highest  order, 
but  at  least  it  was  better  stuff  than  had  ever  gone  into 
the  making  of  American  plays.  In  the  early  eighties 
profound  darkness  still  hung  over  the  stage,  for  the 
intellect  of  a  democracy,  which  first  seeks  an  outlet 
in  statesmanship,  secondly  in  commerce,  and  lastly 
in  art  and  literature,  had  hardly  begun  to  express 
itself,  with  the  immaturity  of  youth,  in  several  of 


A  TREADWELL  IN  REVOLT  129 

these  latter  fields.  It  was  Oliver's  distinction  as  well 
as  his  misfortune  that  he  lived  before  his  country 
was  ready  for  him.  Coming  a  quarter  of  a  century 
later,  he  might  have  made  a  part  of  a  national  emanci 
pation  of  intellect.  Coming  when  he  did,  he  stood 
merely  for  one  of  the  spasmodic  reactions  against  the 
dominant  spirit.  Unwritten  history  is  full  of  such 
reactions,  since  it  is  by  the  accumulated  energy  of 
their  revolts  that  the  world  moves  on  its  way. 

But  at  the  age  of  twenty-two,  though  he  was  assured 
that  he  understood  both  woman  and  the  universe 
in  which  she  belonged,  he  was  pathetically  ignorant 
of  his  own  place  in  the  extravagance  of  Nature.  With 
the  rest  of  us,  he  would  have  been  astounded  at  the 
suggestion  that  he  might  have  been  born  to  be  wasted. 
Other  things  were  wasted,  he  knew,  since  those  who 
called  Nature  an  economist  had  grossly  flattered 
her.  Types  and  races  and  revolutions  were  squan 
dered  with  royal  prodigality  —  but  that  he  himself 
should  be  so  was  clearly  unthinkable.  Deep  down 
in  him  there  was  the  obstinate  belief  that  his  existence 
was  a  vital  matter  to  the  awful  Power  that  ruled  the 
universe;  and  while  he  worked  that  May  evening 
at  the  second  act  of  his  great  play,  with  the  sweat 
raining  from  his  brow  in  the  sweltering  heat,  it  was 
as  impossible  for  him  to  conceive  of  ultimate  failure 
as  it  was  for  him  to  realize  that  he  should  ever  cease 
to  exist.  The  air  was  stagnant,  the  light  was  bad, 
his  stomach  was  empty,  and  he  was  tormented  by 
the  stinging  of  the  gnats  that  circled  around  the  flame 
-  but  he  was  gloriously  happy  with  the  happiness 
of  a  man  who  has  given  himself  to  an  idea. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    ARTIST    IN    PHILISTIA 

AT  DAWN,  after  a  sleepless  night,  Oliver  dressed 
himself  and  made  a  cup  of  coffee  on  the  spirit  lamp 
he  carried  in  his  bag.  While  he  drank,  a  sense  of 
power  passed  over  him  like  warmth.  He  was  cheered, 
he  was  even  exhilarated.  A  single  cup  of  this  miracu 
lous  fluid,  and  his  depression  was  vanquished  as  no 
argument  could  have  vanquished  it.  Without  sermon 
izing,  without  logic  even,  the  demon  of  pessimism, 
which  has  its  home  in  an  empty  stomach,  was  expelled 
into  spiritual  darkness.  He  remembered  that  he  had 
eaten  nothing  for  almost  twenty-four  hours  (having 
missed  yesterday's  dinner),  and  this  thought  carried 
him  downstairs,  where  he  begged  a  roll  from  a  yawning 
negro  cook  in  the  kitchen.  Coming  up  to  his  room 
again,  he  poured  out  a  second  cup  of  coffee,  added  a 
dash  of  cream,  which  he  had  brought  with  him  in  a 
handleless  pitcher,  and  leaning  comfortably  back  in 
the  worn  horsehair  covered  chair  by  the  window, 
relapsed  into  a  positive  orgy  of  enjoyment.  His 
whole  attitude  toward  the  universe  had  been  altered 
by  a  bubbling  potful  of  brown  liquid,  and  the  tre 
mendous  result  -  -  so  grotesquely  out  of  propor 
tion  to  its  cause  —  appeared  to  him  at  the  min 
ute  entirely  right  and  proper.  Everything  was 
entirely  right  and  proper,  and  he  felt  able  to  ap- 

130 


THE  AKTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  131 

prove  with  a  clear  conscience  the  Divine  arrangement 
of  existence. 

Outside,  the  sunrise,  which  he  could  not  see,  was 
flooding  the  roofs  of  Dinwiddie  with  a  dull  golden 
light.  The  heat  had  given  way  before  the  soft  wind 
which  smelt  of  flowers,  and  scattered  tiny  shreds  of 
mist,  like  white  rose-leaves,  over  the  moist  gardens. 
The  look  of  unreality,  which  had  been  a  fiction  of  the 
moonlight,  faded  gradually  as  the  day  broke,  and 
left  the  harsh  outlines  and  the  blackened  chimneys  of 
the  town  unsoftened  by  any  shadow  of  illusion. 
Presently,  as  the  sunlight  fell  aslant  the  winding 
streets,  there  was  a  faint  stir  in  the  house;  but  since 
the  day  was  Sunday,  and  Dinwiddie  observed  the 
Sabbath  by  sleeping  late,  this  stir  was  slow  and 
drowsy,  like  the  movement  of  people  but  half  awake. 
First,  a  dilapidated  milk  wagon  rumbled  through 
the  alleys  to  the  back  gates,  where  dishevelled  negro 
maids  ran  out  with  earthenware  pitchers,  which  went 
back  foaming  around  the  brims.  Then  the  doors  of 
the  houses  opened  slowly;  the  green  outside  shutters 
were  flung  wide;  and  an  army  of  coloured  servants 
bearing  brooms,  appeared  on  the  porches,  and  made 
expressive  gestures  to  one  another  over  the  railings. 
Occasionally,  when  one  lifted  a  doormat  in  order  to 
beat  the  dust  out  of  it,  she  would  forget  to  put  it 
down  again  while  she  stared  after  the  milk  cart. 
Nobody  —  not  even  the  servants  —  seemed  to  regard 
the  wasted  hours  as  of  any  importance.  It  struck 
Oliver  that  the  only  use  Dinwiddie  made  of  time  was 
to  kill  it. 

He  fell  to  work  with  enthusiasm,  and  he  was  still 
working  when  the  reverberations  of  the  breakfast 


132  VIRGINIA 

bell  thundered  in  his  ears.  Going  downstairs  to  the 
dining-room,  he  found  several  thin  and  pinched  looking 
young  women,  with  their  hats  on  and  Sunday-school 
lessons  beside  their  plates.  Mrs.  Peachey,  still  smiling 
her  quizzical  smile,  sat  at  the  head  of  the  table,  pouring 
coffee  out  of  an  old  silver  coffee-pot,  which  was  battered 
in  on  one  side  as  if  it  had  seen  active  service  in  the  war. 
When,  after  a  few  hurried  mouthfuls,  he  asked  per 
mission  to  return  to  his  work,  she  received  his  excuses 
with  the  same  cheerful  acquiescence  with  which  she 
accepted  the  decrees  of  Providence.  It  is  doubt 
ful,  indeed,  if  her  serenity,  which  was  rooted  in  an 
heroic  hopelessness,  could  have  been  shaken  either 
by  the  apologies  of  a  boarder  or  by  the  appearance  of 
an  earthquake.  Her  happiness  was  of  that  invulner 
able  sort  which  builds  its  nest  not  in  the  luxuriant 
gardens  of  the  emotions,  but  in  the  bare,  rock-bound 
places  of  the  spirit.  Courage,  humour,  an  adherence 
to  conviction  which  is  wedded  to  an  utter  inability 
to  respect  any  opinion  except  one's  own;  loyalty  which 
had  sprung  from  a  principle  into  a  passion ;  a  fortifying 
trust,  less  in  the  Power  that  rules  the  universe  than 
in  the  peculiar  virtues  of  the  Episcopal  prayer-book 
when  bound  in  black;  a  capacity  for  self-sacrifice 
which  had  made  the  South  a  nation  of  political  martyrs ; 
complacency,  exaltation,  narrowness  of  vision,  and 
uncompromising  devotion  to  an  ideal  —  these  were 
the  qualities  which  had  passed  from  the  race  into 
the  individual  and  through  the  individual  again  back 
into  the  very  blood  and  the  fibre  of  the  race. 

44 Do  you  work  on  Sunday?"  she  inquired  sweetly, 
yet  with  the  faintest  tinge  of  disapproval  in  her  tone. 

He  nodded.     "Once  in  a  while." 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  133 

"Saint  James'  Church  is  only  a  few  minutes'  walk 
from  here;  but  I  suppose  you  are  a  Presbyterian,  like 
your  uncle?" 

His  respectability  he  saw  hung  in  the  balance  — 
for  to  have  avowed  himself  a  freethinker  would  have 
dyed  him  socially  only  one  shade  less  black  than  to 
have  declared  himself  a  Republican  —  so,  escaping 
without  a  further  confession  of  faith,  he  ascended 
to  his  room  and  applied  himself  anew  to  the  regenera 
tion  of  the  American  drama.  The  dull  gold  light, 
which  slept  on  the  brick  walls,  began  presently 
to  slant  in  long  beams  over  the  roofs,  which 
mounted  like  steps  up  the  hillside,  while  as  the  morning 
advanced,  the  mellow  sound  of  chimes  floated  out 
on  the  stillness,  calling  Dinwiddians  to  worship,  as 
it  had  called  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  and 
great-grandfathers  before  them.  The  Sabbath  calm, 
so  heavy  that  an  axe  could  hardly  have  dispelled  it, 
filled  the  curving  streets  and  the  square  gardens  like 
an  invisible  fog  —  a  fog  that  dulled  the  brain  and 
weighed  down  the  eyelids  and  made  the  grim  walls 
of  the  Treadwell  tobacco  factory  look  as  if  they  were 
rising  out  of  a  dream.  Into  this  dream,  under  the 
thick  boughs  of  mulberry  trees,  there  passed  presently 
a  thin  file  of  people,  walking  alone  or  in  pairs.  The 
men  were  mostly  old;  but  the  women  were  of  every 
age,  and  all  except  the  very  young  were  clad  in 
mourning  and  wore  hanging  veils  on  their  bonnets. 
Though  Oliver  did  not  know  it,  he  was,  in  reality, 
watching  a  procession  of  those  who,  having  once 
embraced  a  cause  and  lost  it,  were  content  to  go  on 
quietly  in  a  hush  of  memory  for  the  rest  of  life.  Passion 
had  once  inflamed  them,  but  they  moved  now  in 


134  VIRGINIA 

the  inviolable  peace  which  comes  only  to  those  who 
have  nothing  left  that  they  may  lose.  At  the  end  of 
the  line,  in  the  middle  of  the  earthen  roadbed  walked 
an  old  horse,  with  an  earnest  face  and  a  dump  cart 
hitched  to  him,  and  in  the  cart  were  the  boxes  of 
books  which  Susan  had  helped  Oliver  to  pack  the 
evening  before.  "Who'd  have  thought  she'd  get  them 
here  so  soon?"  he  said  to  himself.  "By  George,  she 
is  a  wonder!  And  Sunday  too!" 

The  old  horse,  having  reached  the  hilltop,  disap 
peared  behind  the  next  house,  and  ten  minutes  later 
Mrs.  Peachey  escorted  the  smallest  of  his  boxes  into 
his  bedroom. 

"Your  cousin  is  downstairs,  but  I  didn't  know 
whether  you  wanted  me  to  bring  her  up  here  or  not?" 
she  said. 

"Of  course  you  do,  don't  you,  Oliver?"  asked 
Susan's  voice,  and  entering  the  room,  she  coolly  pre 
sented  her  cheek  to  him.  This  coolness,  which  im 
pressed  him  almost  as  much  as  her  extraordinary 
capability,  made  him  feel  sometimes  as  if  she  had 
built  a  stone  wall  between  them.  Years  afterwards  he 
asked  himself  if  this  was  why  his  admiration  for  her 
had  never  warmed  into  love? 

"Well,  you're  a  good  one!"  he  exclaimed,  as  she 
drew  back  from  the  casual  embrace. 

"I  knew  you  were  here,"  she  answered,  "because 
John  Henry  Pendleton"  (was  it  his  imagination  or 
did  the  faintest  blush  tinge  her  face?)  "saw  Major 
Peachey  last  night  and  told  me  on  his  way  home." 

"You  can't  help  me  straighten  up,  I  suppose?  The 
room  looks  a  sight." 

"Not  now  —  I'm  on  my  way  to  church,  and  I'll 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  135 

be  late  if  I  don't  hurry."  She  wore  a  grey  cashmere 
dress,  made  with  a  draped  polonaise  which  accentuated 
her  rather  full  hips,  and  a  hat  with  a  steeple  crown 
that  did  not  suit  the  Tread  well  arch  of  her  nose.  He 
thought  she  looked  plain,  but  he  did  not  realize  that 
in  another  dress  and  hat  she  might  have  been  almost 
beautiful  —  that  she  was,  indeed,  one  of  those  large- 
minded,  passionately  honest  women  who,  in  their 
scorn  of  pretence  or  affectation,  rarely  condescend 
to  make  the  best  of  their  appearances.  To  have 
consciously  selected  a  becoming  hat  would  have 
seemed  to  her  a  species  of  coquetry,  and  coquetry, 
even  the  most  innocent,  she  held  in  abhorrence.  Her 
sincerity  was  not  only  intellectual;  it  was  of  that  rarer 
sort  which  has  its  root  in  a  physical  instinct. 

After  she  had  gone,  he  worked  steadily  for  a  couple 
of  hours,  and  then  opened  one  of  the  boxes  Susan  had 
brought  and  arranged  a  few  of  his  books  in  a  row  on 
the  mantelpiece.  It  was  while  he  stood  still  unde 
cided  whether  to  place  "The  Origin  of  Species"  or 
"The  Critique  of  Pure  Reason"  on  the  end  nearest 
his  bed,  that  a  knock  came  at  his  door,  and  the  figure 
of  Miss  Priscilla  Batte,  attired  in  a  black  silk  dolman 
with  bugle  trimmings,  stood  revealed  on  the  threshold. 

"Sally  Peachey  just  told  me  that  you  were  here," 
she  said,  enfolding  him  in  the  embrace  which  seemed 
common  to  Dinwiddie,  "so  I  thought  I  would  speak 
to  you  on  my  way  back  from  church.  I  don't  suppose 
you've  ever  heard  of  me,  but  I  am  your  cousin  Priscilla 
Batte." 

Though  he  was  entirely  unaware  of  it,  the  moment 
was  a  momentous  one  in  his  experience.  The  visit 
of  Miss  Priscilla  may  have  appeared  an  insignificant 


136  VIRGINIA 

matter  to  those  who  have  not  learned  that  the  insig 
nificant  is  merely  the  significant  seen  from  another 
angle  —  but  the  truth  was  that  it  marked  a  decisive 
milestone  in  his  emotional  history.  Even  Mrs.  Peachey, 
who  had  walked  back  from  church  with  her,  and  who 
harboured  the  common  delusion  that  Life  selects  only 
slim  bodies  for  its  secret  agents,  did  not  dream  as  she 
watched  that  enormous  figure  toil  up  the  staircase 
that  she  was  gazing  upon  the  movement  of  destiny. 
Had  Oliver  been  questioned  as  to  the  dominant 
influence  in  shaping  his  career,  he  would  probably 
have  answered  blindly,  but  sincerely,  "The  Critique 
of  Pure  Reason"  -so  far  was  he  from  suspecting 
that  his  philosophy  had  less  control  over  his  future 
than  had  the  accident  that  his  mother  was  the  third 
cousin  of  Priscilla  Batte. 

He  pushed  a  chair  into  the  widest  space  he  could 
find,  and  she  seated  herself  as  modestly  as  if  she  were 
not  the  vehicle  of  the  invisible  Powers.  The  stiff 
grosgrain  strings  of  her  bonnet  stood  out  like  small 
wings  under  her  double  chin,  and  on  her  massive 
bosom  he  saw  the  cameo  brooch  bearing  the  war-like 
profile  of  Athene.  As  she  sat  there,  beaming  com 
placently  upon  him,  with  her  prayer-book  and  hymnal 
held  at  a  decent  angle  in  front  of  her,  she  seemed  to 
Oliver  to  dominate  the  situation  simply  by  the  solid 
weight  of  her  physical  presence.  In  her  single  person 
she  managed  to  produce  the  effect  of  a  majority. 
As  a  mere  mass  of  humanity  she  carried  conviction. 

"I  was  sorry  not  to  see  you  at  church,"  she  said, 
"but  I  suppose  you  went  with  Cyrus."  As  he  shook 
his  head  silently,  she  added  hastily,  "I  hope  there's 
nothing  wrong  between  you  and  him." 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  137 

"Nothing  except  that  I  have  decided  not  to  go 
into  the  tobacco  business." 

"But  what  in  the  world  are  you  going  to  do?  How 
are  you  going  to  live  if  he  doesn't  provide  for 

you?" 

"Oh,  I'll  manage  somehow.  You  needn't  worry, 
Cousin  Priscilla."  He  smiled  at  her  across  the  un 
finished  page  of  his  play,  and  this  smile  won  her  as 
it  had  won  Mrs.  Peachey.  Like  most  spinsters  she 
had  remained  a  creature  of  sentiment,  and  the  appeal 
of  the  young  and  masculine  she  found  difficult  to  resist. 
After  all  he  was  a  charming  boy,  her  heart  told  her. 
What  he  needed  was  merely  some  good  girl  to  take 
care  of  him  and  convert  him  to  the  Episcopal  Church. 
And  immediately,  as  is  the  way  with  women,  she  became 
as  anxious  to  sacrifice  Virginia  to  this  possible  redemp 
tion  of  the  male  as  she  had  been  alarmed  by  the  sus 
picion  that  such  a  desire  existed  in  Susan.  Though  it 
would  have  shocked  her  to  hear  that  she  held  any 
opinion  in  common  with  Mohammed  (who  appeared  in 
the  universal  history  she  taught  only  in  a  brief  list  of 
"false  prophets"),  there  existed  deep  down  in  her  the 
feeling  that  a  man's  soul  was  of  greater  consequence 
than  a  woman's  in  the  eyes  of  God. 

"I  hope  you  haven't  been  foolish,  Oliver,"  she 
said  in  a  tone  which  conveyed  an  emotional  sympathy 
as  well  as  a  moral  protest. 

"That  depends  upon  what  you  mean  by  foolishness," 
he  returned,  still  smiling. 

"Well,  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  quarrel  with  Cyrus. 
He  may  not  be  perfect.  I  am  not  saying  that  he 
mightn't  have  been  a  better  husband,  for  instance  — 
though  I  always  hold  the  woman  to  blame  when  a 


138  VIRGINIA 

marriage  turns  out  a  failure  —  but  when  all's  said 
and  done,  he  is  a  great  man,  Oliver." 

He  shook  his  head  impatiently.  "I've  heard  that 
until  I'm  sick  of  it  —  forgive  me,  Cousin  Priscilla." 

"Everybody  admires  him  —  that  is,  everybody  ex 
cept  Belinda." 

"I  should  say  she'd  had  excellent  opportunities  for 
forming  an  opinion.  What's  he  ever  done,  anyhow, 
that's  great,"  he  asked  almost  angrily,  "except  accumu 
late  money?  It  seems  to  me  that  you've  gone  mad 
over  money  in  Dinwiddie.  I  suppose  it's  the  reaction 
from  having  to  do  without  it  so  long." 

Miss  Priscilla,  whose  native  serenity  drew  strength 
from  another's  loss  of  temper,  beamed  into  his  flushed 
face  as  if  she  enjoyed  the  spectacle  of  his  heightened 
colour. 

"You  oughtn't  to  talk  like  that,  Oliver,"  she  said. 
"How  on  earth  are  you  going  to  fall  in  love  and  marry, 
if  you  haven't  any  money  to  keep  a  wife?  What  you 
need  is  a  good  girl  to  look  after  you.  I  never  married, 
myself,  but  I  am  sometimes  tempted  to  believe  that 
even  an  unhappy  marriage  is  better  than  none  at  all. 
At  least  it  gives  you  something  to  think  about." 

"I  have  enough  to  think  about  already.  I  have 
my  work." 

"But  work  isn't  a  wife." 

"I  know  it  isn't,  but  I  happen  to  like  it  better." 

Her  matchmaking  instinct  had  received  a  check,  but 
the  placid  determination  which  was  the  basis  of  her  char 
acter  was  merely  reinforced  thereby  to  further  efforts. 
It  was  for  his  good  to  marry  (had  not  her  mother  and 
her  grandmother  instilled  into  her  the  doctrine  that 
an  early  marriage  was  the  single  masculine  safeguard, 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  1S9 

since,  once  married,  a  man's  morality  became  not 
his  own  business,  but  his  wife's),  and  marry  him  she 
was  resolved  to  do,  either  with  his  cheerful  co 
operation,  or,  if  necessary,  without  it.  He  had  cer 
tainly  looked  at  Virginia  as  if  he  admired  her,  and 
surely  a  girl  like  that  —  lovely,  loving,  unselfish  to  a 
fault,  and  trained  from  her  infancy  to  excel  in  all 
the  feminine  virtues  —  surely,  this  perfect  flower  of 
sex  specialization  could  have  been  designed  by  Provi 
dence  only  for  the  delight  and  the  sanctification  of 
man. 

"Then,  if  that  is  the  way  your  mind  is  made  up 
I  hope  you  will  be  careful  not  to  trifle  with  the  feel 
ings  of  a  girl  like  Jinny  Pendleton,"  she  retorted  se 
verely. 

By  a  single  stroke  of  genius,  inspired  by  the  diplo 
macy  inherent  in  a  sex  whose  chief  concern  has  been 
the  making  of  matches,  she  transfixed  his  imagination 
as  skilfully  as  she  might  have  impaled  a  butterfly 
on  a  bodkin.  While  he  stared  at  her  she  could  almost 
see  the  iridescent  wings  of  his  fancy  whirling  madly 
around  the  idea  by  which  she  had  arrested  their 
flight.  Trifle  with  Virginia!  Trifle  with  that  radiant 
vision  of  girlhood!  All  the  chivalry  of  youth  revolted 
from  the  suggestion,  and  he  thought  again  of  the 
wistful  adoration  in  the  eyes  of  a  Perugino  virgin. 
Was  it  possible  that  she  could  ever  look  at  him  with 
that  angelic  expression  of  weakness  and  surrender? 
The  fire  of  first  love,  which  had  smouldered  under  the 
weight  of  his  reason,  burst  suddenly  into  flame.  His 
thoughts,  which  had  been  as  clear  as  a  geometrical 
figure,  became  suddenly  blurred  by  the  mystery  upon 
which  passion  lives.  He  was  seized  by  a  consuming 


140  VIRGINIA 

wonder  about  Virginia,  and  this  wonder  was  heightened 
when  he  remembered  the  appealing  sweetness  in  her 
face  as  she  smiled  up  at  him.  Did  she  already  love 
him?  Had  he  conquered  by  a  look  the  exquisite 
modesty  of  her  soul?  With  this  thought  the  memory 
of  her  virginal  shyness  stung  his  senses  as  if  it  were 
the  challenge  of  sex.  Chivalry,  love,  vanity,  curiosity 
-  all  these  circled  helplessly  around  the  invisible 
axis  of  Miss  Priscilla's  idea. 

"What  do  you  mean?     Surely  you  don't  suppose  - 
she  hasn't  said  anything  - 

"You  don't  imagine  that  Jinny  is  the  kind  of  girl  who 
would  say  anything,  do  you?"  inquired  Miss  Priscilla. 

"But  there  must  be  some  reason  why  you  should 
have- 

"If  there  is,  my  dear  boy,  I'm  not  going  to  tell 
it,"  she  answered  with  a  calmness  which  he  felt,  in 
his  excited  state,  to  be  positively  infernal.  "All  I 
meant  was  to  warn  you  not  to  trifle  with  any  girl 
as  innocent  of  life  as  Jinny  Pendleton  is.  I  don't 
want  her  to  get  her  heart  broken  before  she  has  the 
chance  to  make  some  man  happy." 

"Do  you  honestly  mean  to  imply  that  I  could  break 
her  heart  if  I  tried  to?" 

"I  don't  mean  to  imply  anything.  I  am  only 
telling  you  that  she  is  just  the  kind  of  girl  a  man  would 
want  to  marry.  She  is  her  mother  all  over  again, 
and  I  don't  believe  Lucy  has  ever  thought  of  herself 
a  minute  since  she  married." 

"She  looks  like  an  angel,"  he  said,  "but- 

"And  she  isn't  a  bit  the  kind  of  girl  that  Susan  is, 
though  they  are  so  devoted.  Now,  I  can  under 
stand  a  man  not  wanting  to  marry  Susan,  because 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  141 

she  is  so  full  of  ideas,  and  has  a  mind  of  her  own  about 
things.  But  Jinny  is  different." 

Then,  seeing  that  she  had  "unsettled"  his  mind 
sufficiently  for  her  purpose,  she  rose  and  looked  around 
the  room  with  the  inordinate  curiosity  about  details 
which  kept  her  still  young  in  spite  of  her  sixty  years. 

"You  don't  mean  to  tell  me  you  brought  all  those 
books  with  you,  Oliver?"  she  asked.  "Why  on  earth 
don't  you  get  rid  of  some  of  them?" 

"I  can't  spare  any  of  them.  I  never  know  which 
one  I  may  want  next." 

"What  are  those  you're  putting  on  the  mantelpiece? 
Isn't  Darwin  the  name  of  the  man  who  said  we  were 
all  descended  from  monkeys?" 

As  he  made  no  answer  to  this  except  to  press  her 
hand  and  thank  her  for  coming,  she  left  the  mantel 
piece  and  wandered  to  the  window,  where  her  gaze 
rested,  with  a  look  of  maternal  satisfaction,  on  the 
roofs  of  Dinwiddie. 

"It's  a  jolly  view  of  the  town,  isn't  it?"  he  said. 
"There's  nothing  like  looking  down  from  a  hilltop 
to  give  one  a  sense  of  superiority." 

"You  can  see  straight  into  Mrs.  Goode's  backyard," 
she  replied,  "and  I  never  knew  before  that  she  left 
her  clothes  hanging  on  the  line  on  Sunday.  That 
comes,  I  suppose,  from  not  looking  after  her  servants 
and  gadding  about  on  all  sorts  of  charities.  She  told 
me  the  other  day  that  she  belonged  to  every  charitable 
organization  in  Dinwiddie." 

"  Is  she  Abby 'smother?" 

"Yes,  but  you'd  never  imagine  they  were  any 
relation.  Abby  gave  me  more  trouble  than  any  girl 
I  ever  taught.  She  never  would  learn  the  multipli- 


142  VIRGINIA 

cation  table,  and  I  don't  believe  to  this  day  she  knows 
it.  There  isn't  any  harm  in  her  except  that  she  is  a 
scatter-brain,  and  will  make  eyes  or  burst.  I  some 
times  think  it  isn't  her  fault  —  that  she  was  just  born 
man-crazy." 

"She's  awfully  good  fun,"  he  laughed. 

"Are  you  going  to  her  garden  party  on  Wednesday?" 

"I  accepted  before  I  quarrelled  with  Uncle  Cyrus, 
but  I'll  have  to  get  out  of  it  now." 

"Oh,  I  wouldn't.  All  the  pretty  girls  in  town  will 
be  there." 

"Are  there  any  plain  ones?  And  what  becomes  of 
them?" 

"The  Lord  only  knows!  Old  Judge  Bassett  used 
to  say  that  there  wouldn't  be  any  preserves  and  pickles 
in  the  world  if  all  women  were  born  good-looking. 
I  declare  I  never  realized  how  small  the  tower  of 
Saint  James'  Church  is!" 

For  a  moment  he  hesitated,  and  when  he  spoke  his 
voice  had  taken  a  deeper  tone.  "Will  Virginia  Pendle- 
ton  be  at  the  party?"  he  asked. 

"She  wouldn't  miss  it  for  anything  in  the  world. 
Miss  Willy  Whitlow  was  sewing  there  yesterday  on  a 
white  organdie  dress  for  her  to  wear.  Have  you  ever 
seen  Jinny  in  white  organdie?  I  always  tell  Lucy 
the  child  looks  sweet  enough  to  eat  when  she  puts  it 


on.'5 


He  laughed  again,  but  not  as  he  had  laughed  at 
her  description  of  Abby.  "Ask  her  please  to  put 
blue  bows  on  her  flounces  and  a  red  rose  in  her  hair," 
he  said. 

"Then  you  are  going?" 

"Not   if   I   can   possibly   keep   away.     Oh,    Cousin 


THE  ARTIST  IN  PHILISTIA  143 

Priscilla,  why  didn't  I  inherit  my  soul  from  your  side 
of  the  family." 

"Well,  for  my  part  I  don't  believe  in  all  this  talk 
about  inheritance.  Nobody  ever  heard  of  inheriting 
anything  but  money  when  I  was  a  girl.  You've  got 
the  kind  of  soul  the  good  Lord  wanted  to  put  into 
you  and  that's  all  there  is  about  it." 

When  he  returned  from  assisting  her  in  her  pant 
ing  and  difficult  descent  of  the  stairs,  he  sat  down 
again  before  the  unfinished  act  of  his  play,  but  his 
eyes  wandered  from  the  manuscript  to  the  town, 
which  lay  as  bright  and  still  in  the  sunlight  as  if  it 
were  imprisoned  in  crystal.  The  wonder  aroused  in 
his  mind  by  Miss  Priscilla's  allusion  to  Virginia  per 
sisted  as  a  disturbing  element  in  the  background  of 
his  thoughts.  What  had  she  meant?  Was  it  possible 
that  there  was  truth  in  the  wildest  imaginings  of  his 
vanity?  Virginia's  face,  framed  in  her  wreath  of 
hair,  floated  beneath  the  tower  of  Saint  James'  Church 
at  which  he  was  gazing,  and  the  radiant  goodness 
in  her  look  mounted  like  a  draught  of  strong 
wine  to  his  brain.  Passion,  which  he  had  dis 
counted  in  his  plans  for  the  future,  appeared  sud 
denly  to  shake  the  very  foundations  of  his  life. 
Never  before  had  the  spirit  and  the  flesh  united  in 
the  appeal  of  a  woman  to  his  imagination.  Never 
before  had  the  divine  virgin  of  his  dreams  assumed  the 
living  red  and  white  of  young  girlhood.  He  thought 
how  soft  her  hair  must  be  to  the  touch,  and  how  warm 
her  mouth  would  glow  from  his  kisses.  With  a  kind 
of  wonder  he  realized  that  this  was  first  love  —  that 
it  was  first  love  he  had  felt  when  he  met  her  eyes 
under  the  dappled  sunlight  in  High  Street.  The 


144  VIRGINIA 

memory  of  her  beauty  was  like  a  net  which  enmeshed 
his  thoughts  when  he  tried  to  escape  it.  Look  where 
he  would  he  saw  always  a  cloud  of  dark  hair  and  two 
deep  blue  eyes  that  shone  as  softly  as  wild  hyacinths 
after  a  shower.  Think  as  he  would  he  met  always 
the  haunting  doubt  —  "What  did  she  mean?  Can  it 
be  true  that  she  already  loves  me?"  So  small  an 
incident  as  Miss  Priscilla's  Sunday  call  had  not  only 
upset  his  work  for  the  morning,  but  had  changed  in 
an  instant  the  even  course  of  his  future.  He  decided 
suddenly  that  he  must  see  Virginia  again  —  that  he 
would  go  to  Abby  Goode's  party,  and  though  the 
party  was  only  three  days  off,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  waiting  would  be  almost  unbearable.  Only  after 
he  had  once  seen  her  would  it  be  possible,  he  felt,  to 
stop  thinking  of  her  and  to  return  comfortably  to 
his  work. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

WHITE    MAGIC 

IN  THE  centre  of  her  bedroom,  with  her  back  turned 
to  that  bookcase  which  was  filled  with  sugared  false 
hoods  about  life,  Virginia  was  standing  very  straight 
while  Miss  Willy  Whitlow  knelt  at  her  feet  and  sewed 
pale  blue  bows  on  her  overskirt  of  white  organdie. 
Occasionally,  the  door  opened  softly,  and  the  rector 
or  one  of  the  servants  looked  in  to  see  "Jinny"  or 
"Miss  Jinny  dressed  for  the  party,"  and  when  such 
interruptions  occurred,  Mrs.  Pendleton,  who  sat  on 
an  ottoman  at  the  dressmaker's  right  hand  and  held 
a  spool  of  thread  and  a  pair  of  scissors  in  her  lap, 
would  say  sternly,  "Don't  move,  Jinny,  stand  straight 
or  Miss  Willy  won't  get  the  bows  right."  At  these 
warning  words,  Virginia's  thin  shoulders  would  spring 
back  and  the  filmy  ruffles  stir  gently  over  her  girlish 
breast. 

Through  the  open  window,  beyond  the  drooping 
boughs  of  the  paulownia  trees,  a  few  wistful  stars 
shone  softly  through  the  web  of  purple  twilight.  The 
night  smelt  of  a  thousand  flowers  —  all  the  mingled 
sweetness  of  old  gardens  floated  in  on  the  warm  wind 
and  caressed  the  faded  figure  of  Miss  Willy  as  lovingly 
as  it  did  the  young  and  radiant  vision  of  Virginia. 
Once  or  twice  the  kneeling  seamstress  had  glanced  up 
at  the  girl  and  thought:  "I  wonder  how  it  feels  to 

145 


146  VIRGINIA 

be  as  lovely  as  that?"  Then  she  sighed  as  one  who 
had  missed  her  heritage,  for  she  had  been  always 
plain,  and  went  on  patiently  sewing  the  bows  on 
Virginia's  overskirt.  "You  can't  have  everything  in 
this  world,  and  I  ought  to  be  thankful  that  I've  kept 
out  of  the  poorhouse,"  she  added  a  minute  later  when 
a  little  stab  of  envy  went  through  her  at  hearing  the 
girl  laugh  from  sheer  happiness. 

"Am  I  all  right,  mother?     Tell  me  how  I  look." 
"Lovely,   darling.     There  won't  be  any  one  there 
sweeter  than  you  are." 

The  maternal  passion  lit  Mrs.  Pendleton's  eyes  with 

splendour,  and  her  worn  face  was  illuminated  as  if  a 

lamp  had  been  held  suddenly  close  to  it.     All  day, 

in  spite  of  a  neuralgic  pain  in  her  temples,  she  had 

worked    hard    hemming    the    flounces    for    Virginia's 

dress,  and  into  every  stitch  had  gone  something  of  the 

divine   ecstasy   of    martyrdom.     Her   life   centred   so 

entirely   in  her   affections   that  apart  from  love  she 

could  be  hardly  said  to  exist  at  all.     In  spite  of  her 

trials  she  was  probably  the  happiest  woman  in  Dinwid- 

die,  for  she  had  found  her  happiness  in  the  only  way  it 

is  ever  won  —  by  turning  her  back  on  it.     Never  once 

had  she  thought  of  it  as  an  end  to  be  pursued,  never 

even  as  a  flower  to  be  plucked  from  the  wayside.     It 

is  doubtful  if  she  had  ever  stopped  once  in  the  thirty 

years  of  her  marriage  to  ask  herself  the  questions: 

"Is  this  what  I  want  to  do?"  or  "Does  this  make  me 

happy?"     Love  meant  to  her  not  grasping,  but  giving, 

and  in  serving  others  she  had  served  herself  unawares. 

Even  her  besetting  sin  of  "false  pride"  she  indulged 

not  on  her  own  account,  but  because  she,  who  could  be 

humble  enough  for  herself,  could  not  bear  to  associate 


WHITE  MAGIC  147 

the  virtue  of  humility  with  either  her  husband  or  her 
daughter. 

The  last  blue  bow  was  attached  to  the  left  side  of 
the  overskirt,  and  while  Miss  Willy  rose  from  her 
knees,  Virginia  crossed  to  the  window  and  gazed  up 
at  the  pale  stars  over  the  tops  of  the  paulownias.  A 
joy  so  vibrant  that  it  was  like  living  music  swelled 
in  her  breast.  She  was  young!  She  was  beautiful! 
She  was  to  be  loved!  This  preternatural  certainty 
of  happiness  was  so  complete  that  the  chilling  dis 
appointments  of  the  last  few  days  had  melted  before 
it  like  frost  in  the  sunlight.  It  was  founded  upon  an 
instinct  so  much  deeper,  so  much  more  primitive  than 
reason,  that  it  resisted  the  logic  of  facts  with  something 
of  the  exalted  obstinacy  with  which  faith  has  resisted 
the  arguments  of  philosophy.  Like  all  young  and 
inexperienced  creatures,  she  was  possessed  by  the 
feeling  that  there  exists  a  magnetic  current  of  attrac 
tion  between  desire  and  the  object  which  it  desires. 
"Something  told"  her  that  she  was  meant  for  happi 
ness,  and  the  voice  of  this  "something"  was  more 
convincing  than  the  chaotic  march  of  phenomena. 
Sorrow,  decay,  death  —  these  appeared  to  her  as 
things  which  must  happen  inevitably  to  other  people, 
but  from  which  she  should  be  forever  shielded  by  some 
beneficent  Providence.  She  thought  of  them  as 
vaguely  as  she  did  of  the  remote  tragedies  of  history. 
They  bore  no  closer  relation  to  her  own  life  than  did 
the  French  Revolution  or  the  beheading  of  Charles 
the  First.  It  was  natural,  if  sad,  that  Miss  Willy 
Whitlow  should  fade  and  suffer.  The  world,  she 
knew,  was  full  of  old  people,  of  weary  people,  of 
blighted  people;  but  she  cherished  passionately  the  belief 


148  VIRGINIA 

that  these  people  were  all  miserable  because,  somehow, 
they  had  not  chosen  to  be  happy.  There  appeared 
something  positively  reprehensible  in  a  person  who 
could  go  sighing  upon  so  kind  and  beautiful  a  planet. 
All  things,  even  joy,  seemed  to  her  a  mere  matter  of 
willing.  It  was  impossible  that  any  hostile  powers 
should  withstand  the  radiant  energy  of  her  desire. 

Leaning  there  from  the  window,  with  her  face  lifted 
to  the  stars,  and  her  mother's  worshipping  gaze  on 
her  back,  she  thought  of  the  "happiness"  which  would 
be  hers  in  the  future:  and  this  "happiness"  meant 
to  her  only  the  solitary  experience  of  love.  Like  all 
the  women  of  her  race,  she  had  played  gallantly  and 
staked  her  world  upon  a  single  chance.  Whereas  a 
man  might  have  missed  love  and  still  have  retained 
life,  with  a  woman  love  and  life  were  interchangeable 
terms.  That  one  emotion  represented  not  only  her 
sole  opportunity  of  joy,  it  constituted  as  well  her  single 
field  of  activity.  The  chasm  between  marriage  and 
spinsterhood  was  as  wide  as  the  one  between  children 
and  pickles.  Yet  so  secret  was  this  intense  absorption 
in  the  thought  of  romance,  that  Mrs.  Pendleton,  for 
getting  her  own  girlhood,  would  have  been  startled 
had  she  penetrated  that  lovely  head  and  discovered 
the  ecstatic  dreams  that  flocked  through  her  daughter's 
brain.  Though  love  was  the  one  window  through 
which  a  woman  might  look  on  a  larger  world,  she  was 
fatuously  supposed  neither  to  think  of  it  nor  to  desire 
it  until  it  had  offered  itself  unsolicited.  Every  girl 
born  into  the  world  was  destined  for  a  heritage  of  love 
or  of  barrenness  —  yet  she  was  forbidden  to  exert 
herself  either  to  invite  the  one  or  to  avoid  the  other. 
For,  in  spite  of  the  fiery  splendour  of  Southern  woman- 


WHITE  MAGIC  149 

hood  during  the  war  years,  to  be  feminine,  in  the 
eyes  of  the  period,  was  to  be  morally  passive. 

"Your  father  has  come  to  see  your  dress,  dear," 
said  her  mother  in  the  voice  of  a  woman  from  whom 
sentiment  overflowed  in  every  tone,  in  every  look,  in 
every  gesture. 

Turning  quickly,  Virginia  met  the  smiling  eyes  of 
the  rector  —  those  young  and  visionary  eyes,  which 
Nature,  with  a  wistful  irony,  had  placed  beneath 
beetling  brows  in  the  creased  and  wrinkled  face  of  an 
old  man.  The  eyes  were  those  of  a  prophet  —  of  one 
who  had  lived  his  life  in  the  light  of  a  transcendent 
inspiration  rather  than  by  the  prosaic  rule  of  practical 
reason;  but  the  face  belonged  to  a  man  who  had  aged 
before  his  time  under  the  accumulated  stress  of  physi 
cal  burdens. 

"How  do  I  look,  father?  Am  I  pretty?"  asked 
Virginia,  stretching  her  thin  young  arms  out  on  either 
side  of  her,  and  waiting  with  parted  lips  to  drink  in 
his  praise. 

"Almost  as  beautiful  as  your  mother,  and  she  grows 
lovelier  every  day  that  she  lives,  doesn't  she?' 

His  adoring  gaze,  which  held  the  spirit  of  beauty 
as  a  crystal  holds  the  spirit  of  light,  passed  from  the 
glowing  features  of  Virginia  to  the  lined  and  pallid 
face  of  his  wife.  In  that  gaze  there  had  been  no 
shadow  of  alteration  for  thirty  years.  It  is  doubtful 
even  if  he  had  seen  any  change  in  her  since  he  had 
first  looked  upon  her  face,  and  thought  it  almost 
unearthly  in  its  angelic  fairness.  From  the  physical 
union  they  had  entered  into  that  deeper  union  of 
souls  in  which  the  body  dissolves  as  the  shadow 
dissolves  into  the  substance,  and  he  saw  her  always  as 


150  VIRGINIA 

she  had  appeared  to  him  on  that  first  morning,  as 
if  the  pool  of  sunlight  in  which  she  had  stood  had 
never  darkened  around  her.  Yet  to  Virginia  his 
words  brought  a  startled  realization  that  her  mother  — 
her  own  mother,  with  her  faded  face  and  her  soft, 
anxious  eyes  —  had  once  been  as  young  and  radiant 
as  she.  The  love  of  her  parents  for  each  other  had 
always  seemed  to  her  as  natural  and  as  far  removed 
from  the  cloudless  zone  of  romance  as  her  own  love 
for  them  —  for,  like  most  young  creatures,  she  re 
garded  love  as  belonging,  with  bright  eyes  and  rosy 
cheeks,  to  the  blissful  period  of  youth. 

"I  hear  John  Henry's  ring,  darling.  Are  you 
ready?"  asked  Mrs.  Pendleton. 

"In  a  minute.  Is  the  rose  right  in  my  hair?" 
replied  Virginia,  turning  her  profile  towards  her  mother, 
while  she  flung  a  misty  white  scarf  over  her  shoulders. 

"Quite  right,  dear.  I  hope  you  will  have  a  lovely 
time.  I  shall  sit  up  for  you,  so  you  needn't  bother  to 
take  a  key." 

"But  you'll  be  so  tired.  Can't  you  make  her  go 
to  bed,  father?" 

"I  couldn't  close  my  eyes  till  I  knew  you  were 
safely  home,  and  heard  how  you'd  enjoyed  yourself," 
answered  Mrs.  Pendleton,  as  they  slowly  descended 
the  staircase,  Virginia  leading  the  way,  and  the  rest 
following  in  a  procession  behind  her.  Turning  at  the 
gate,  with  her  arm  in  John  Henry's,  the  girl  saw  them 
standing  in  the  lighted  doorway,  with  their  tender 
gaze  following  her,  and  the  faces  of  the  little  seamstress 
and  the  two  coloured  servants  staring  over  their 
shoulders.  Trivial  as  the  incident  was,  it  was  one  of 
the  moments  which  stood  out  afterwards  in  Virginia's 


WHITE  MAGIC  151 

memory  as  though  a  white  light  had  fallen  across  it. 
Of  such  simple  and  expressive  things  life  is  woven, 
though  the  years  had  not  taught  her  this  on  that  May 
evening. 

On  the  Goodes'  lawn  lanterns  bloomed,  like  yellow 
flowers  among  the  branches  of  poplar  trees,  and  be 
neath  them  Mrs.  Goode  and  Abby  —  a  loud,  hand 
some  girl,  with  a  coarsened  complexion  and  a  "sport 
ing"  manner  —  received  their  guests  and  waved  them 
on  to  a  dancing  platform  which  had  been  raised 
between  a  rose-crowned  summer-house  and  the  old 
brick  wall  at  the  foot  of  the  garden.  Ropes  were 
stretched  over  the  platform,  from  the  roof  of  the 
summer-house  to  a  cherry  tree  at  the  end  of  the  walk, 
and  on  these  more  lanterns  of  red,  blue,  and  yellow 
paper  were  hanging.  The  air  was  scented  with  honey 
suckle,  and  from  an  obscure  corner  behind  a  trellis 
the  sound  of  a  waltz  floated.  As  music  it  was  not 
of  a  classic  order,  but  this  did  not  matter  since 
nobody  was  aware  of  it;  and  Dinwiddie,  which  de 
veloped  quite  a  taste  for  Wagner  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  century,  could  listen  in  the  eighties  with 
what  was  perhaps  a  sincerer  pleasure,  to  stringed  in 
struments,  a  little  rough,  but  played  with  fervour  by 
mulatto  musicians.  As  Virginia  drifted  off  in  John 
Henry's  arms  for  the  first  dance,  which  she  had  prom 
ised  him,  she  thought:  "I  wonder  if  he  will  not  come 
after  all?"  and  a  pang  shot  through  her  heart  where 
the  daring  joy  had  been  only  a  moment  before.  Then 
the  music  grew  suddenly  heavy  while  she  felt  her  feet 
drag  in  the  waltz.  The  smell  of  honeysuckle  made 
her  sad  as  if  it  brought  back  to  her  senses  an 
unhappy  association  which  she  could  not  remember, 


152  VIRGINIA 

and  it  seemed  to  her  that  her  soul  and  body  trembled, 
like  a  bent  flame,  into  an  attitude  of  expectancy. 

"Let  me  stop  a  minute.  I  want  to  watch  the 
others,"  she  said,  drawing  back  into  the  scented  dusk 
under  a  rose  arbour. 

"But  don't  you  want  to  fill  your  card?  If  the 
men  once  catch  sight  of  you,  you  won't  have  a  dance 
left." 

"No  —  no,  I  want  to  watch  a  while,"  she  said, 
with  so  strange  an  accent  of  irritation  that  he  stared 
at  her  in  surprise.  The  suspense  in  her  heart  hurt 
her  like  a  drawn  cord  in  throbbing  flesh,  and  she  felt 
angry  with  John  Henry  because  he  was  so  dull 
that  he  could  not  see  how  she  suffered.  In  the  dis 
tance,  under  the  waving  gilded  leaves  of  the  poplars, 
she  saw  Abby  laughing  up  into  a  man's  face,  and  she 
thought:  "Can  he  possibly  be  in  love  with  Abby? 
Some  men  are  mad  about  her,  but  I  know  he  isn't. 
He  could  never  like  a  loud  woman,  and,  besides,  he 
couldn't  have  looked  at  me  that  way  if  he  hadn't 
cared."  Then  it  seemed  to  her  that  something  of 
the  aching  suspense  in  her  own  heart  stole  into  Abby's 
laughing  face  while  she  watched  it,  and  from  Abby 
it  passed  onward  into  the  faces  of  all  the  girls  who 
were  dancing  on  the  raised  platform.  Suspense !  Was 
that  a  woman's  life,  after  all?  Never  to  be  able  to 
go  out  and  fight  for  what  one  wanted!  Always  to 
sit  at  home  and  wait,  without  moving  a  foot  or  lifting 
a  hand  toward  happiness!  Never  to  dare  gallantly! 
Never  even  to  suffer  openly!  Always  to  will  in  secret, 
always  to  hope  in  secret,  always  to  triumph  or  to 
fail  in  secret.  Never  to  be  one's  self  —  never  to  let 
one's  soul  or  body  relax  from  the  attitude  of  expectancy 


WHITE  MAGIC  153 

into  the  attitude  of  achievement.  For  the  first  time, 
born  of  the  mutinous  longing  in  her  heart,  there  came 
to  her  the  tragic  vision  of  life.  The  faces  of  the  girls, 
whirling  in  white  muslin  to  the  music  of  the  waltz, 
became  merged  into  one,  and  this  was  the  face  of  all 
womanhood.  Love,  sorrow,  hope,  regret,  wonder,  all 
the  sharp  longing  and  the  slow  waiting  of  the  centuries 
—  above  all  the  slow  waiting  —  these  things  were  in 
her  brief  vision  of  that  single  face  that  looked  back 
at  her  out  of  the  whirling  dance.  Then  the  music 
stopped,  the  one  face  dissolved  into  many  faces,  and 
from  among  them  Susan  passed  under  the  swinging 
lanterns  and  came  towards  her. 

"Oh,  Jinny,  where  have  you  been  hiding?  I  prom 
ised  Oliver  I  would  find  you  for  him.  He  says  he 
came  only  to  look  at  you." 

The  music  began  joyously  again;  the  young  leaves, 
gilded  by  the  yellow  lantern-light,  danced  in  the  warm 
wind  as  if  they  were  seized  by  the  spirit  of  melody; 
and  from  the  dusk  of  the  trellis  the  ravished  sweetness 
of  honeysuckle  flooded  the  garden  with  fragrance. 
With  the  vanished  sadness  in  her  heart  there  fled 
the  sadness  in  the  waltz  and  in  the  faces  of  the  girls 
who  danced  to  the  music.  Waiting  no  longer  seemed 
pain  to  her,  for  it  was  enriched  now  by  the  burning 
sweetness  of  fulfilment. 

Suddenly,  for  she  had  not  seen  him  approach,  she 
was  conscious  that  he  was  at  her  side,  looking  down 
at  her  beneath  a  lantern  which  was  beginning  to 
flicker.  A  sense  of  deep  peace  —  of  perfect  content 
ment  with  the  world  as  God  planned  it  —  took  pos 
session  of  her.  Even  the  minutes  of  suspense  seemed 
good  because  they  had  brought  at  last  this  swift 


154  VIRGINIA 

rush  of  happiness.  Every  line  of  his  face  —  of  that 
face  which  had  captured  her  imagination  as  though  it 
had  been  the  face  of  her  dreams  —  was  illumined  by 
the  quivering  light  that  gilded  the  poplars.  His  eyes 
were  so  close  to  hers  that  she  saw  little  flecks  of  gold 
on  the  brown,  and  she  grew  dizzy  while  she  looked 
into  them,  as  if  she  stood  on  a  height  and  feared  to 
turn  lest  she  should  lose  her  balance  and  fall.  A  de 
licious  stillness,  which  began  in  her  brain  and  passed 
to  her  throbbing  pulses,  enveloped  her  like  a  perfume. 
While  she  stood  there  she  was  incapable  of  thought  — 
except  the  one  joyous  thought  that  this  was  the 
moment  for  which  she  had  waited  since  the  hour  of 
her  birth.  Never  could  she  be  the  same  afterwards! 
Never  could  she  be  unhappy  again  in  the  future! 
For,  like  other  mortals  in  other  ecstatic  instants,  she 
surrendered  herself  to  the  intoxicating  illusion  of  their 
immortality 

After  that  silence,  so  charged  with  emotion  for 
them  both,  it  seemed  that  when  he  spoke  it  must  be 
to  utter  words  that  would  enkindle  the  world  to 
beauty;  but  he  said  merely:  "Is  this  dance  free? 
I  came  only  to  speak  to  you." 

His  look  added,  "I  came  because  my  longing  had 
grown  unbearable";  and  though  she  replied  only  to 
his  words,  it  was  his  look  that  made  the  honeysuckle- 
trellis,  the  yellow  lanterns,  and  the  sky,  with  its  few 
soft  stars,  go  round  like  coloured  balls  before  her  eyes. 
The  world  melted  away  from  her,  and  the  distance 
between  her  and  the  whirling  figures  in  white  muslin 
seemed  greater  than  the  distance  between  star  and 
star.  She  had  the  sense  of  spiritual  remoteness,  of 
shining  isolation,  which  ecstasy  brings  to  the  heart 


WHITE  MAGIC  155 

of  youth,  as  though  she  had  escaped  from  the  control 
of  ordinary  phenomena  and  stood  in  a  blissful  pause 
beyond  time  and  space.  It  was  the  supreme  moment 
of  love;  and  to  her,  whose  soul  acknowledged  no  other 
supremacy  than  that  of  love,  it  was,  also,  the  supreme 
moment  of  life. 

His  face,  as  he  gazed  down  at  her  under  the  swinging 
leaves,  seemed  to  her  as  different  from  all  other  faces 
as  the  exquisite  violence  in  her  soul  was  different 
from  all  other  emotions  she  had  ever  known.  She 
knew  nothing  more  of  him  than  that  she  could  not 
be  happy  away  from  him.  She  needed  no  more 
infallible  proof  of  his  perfection  than  the  look  in  his 
eyes  when  he  smiled  at  her.  So  convincing  was  the 
argument  of  his  smile  that  it  was  not  only  impregnable 
against  any  assault  of  facts,  but  rendered  futile  even 
the  underlying  principle  of  reason.  Had  Aristotle 
himself  risen  from  his  grave  to  prove  to  her  that  blind 
craving  when  multiplied  by  blind  possession  does  not 
equal  happiness,  his  logic  would  have  been  powerless 
before  that  unconquerable  instinct  which  denied  its 
truth.  And  around  them  little  white  moths,  fragile 
as  rose-leaves,  circled  deliriously  in  the  lantern-light, 
for  they,  also,  obeyed  an  unconquerable  instinct  which 
told  them  that  happiness  dwelt  in  the  flame  above 
which  they  were  whirling. 

"I  am  glad  you  wore  blue  ribbons"  he  said  suddenly. 

Her  lashes  trembled  and  fell,  but  they  could  not 
hide  the  glow  that  shone  in  her  eyes  and  in  the  faint 
smile  which  trembled,  like  an  edge  of  light,  on  her  lips. 

"Will  you  come  into  the  summer-house  and  sit 
out  this  dance?"  he  asked  when  she  did  not  speak, 
and  she  followed  him  under  the  hanging  clusters  of 


156  VIRGINIA 

early  roses  to  a  bench  in  the  dusk  beside  a  little  rustic 
table.  Here,  after  a  moment's  silence,  he  spoke  again 
recklessly,  yet  with  a  certain  constraint  of  manner. 

"I  suppose  I  oughtn't  to  have  come  here  to-night." 

"Why  not?"  Their  glances,  bright  as  swords, 
crossed  suddenly,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  music 
grew  louder.  Had  it  been  of  any  use,  she  would  have 
prayed  Life  to  dole  the  minutes  out,  one  by  one,  like 
a  miser.  And  all  the  time  she  was  thinking:  "This 
is  the  moment  I've  waited  for  ever  since  I  was  born. 
It  has  come.  I  am  in  the  midst  of  it.  How  can  I 
keep  it  forever?" 

"Well,  I  haven't  any  business  thinking  about  any 
thing  but  my  work,"  he  answered.  "I've  broken  with 
my  uncle,  you  know.  I'm  as  poor  as  a  church  mouse 
and  I'll  never  be  better  off  until  I  get  a  play  on  the 
stage.  For  the  next  few  years  I've  got  to  cut  out 
everything  but  hard  work." 

"Yes."  Her  tongue  was  paralyzed;  she  couldn't 
say  what  she  felt,  and  everything  else  seemed  to  her 
horribly  purposeless  and  ineffectual.  She  wondered 
passionately  if  he  thought  her  a  fool,  for  she  could 
not  look  into  his  mind  and  discover  how  adorable  he 
found  her  monosyllabic  responses.  The  richness  of  her 
beauty  combined  with  the  poverty  of  her  speech  made 
an  irresistible  appeal  to  the  strongest  part  of  him, 
which  was  not  his  heart,  but  his  imagination.  He 
wondered  what  she  would  say  if  she  were  really  to 
let  herself  go,  and  this  wonder  began  gradually  to 
enslave  him. 

"That's  the  reason  I  hadn't  any  business  coming 
here,"  he  added,  "but  the  truth  is  I've  wanted 
to  see  you  again  ever  since  that  first  afternoon. 


WHITE  MAGIC  157 

I  got  to  wondering  whether,"  he  laughed  in  an 
embarrassed  way,  and  added  with  an  attempt  at 
levity,  "whether  you  would  wear  a  red  rose  in  your 
hair." 

At  his  change  of  tone,  she  reached  up  suddenly, 
plucked  the  rose  from  her  hair  and  flung  it  out  on  the 
grass.  Her  action,  which  belied  her  girlish  beauty 
so  strangely  that  only  her  mother  would  have  recog 
nized  it  as  characteristic  of  the  hidden  force  of  the 
woman,  held  him  for  an  instant  speechless  under  her 
laughing  eyes.  Then  turning  away,  he  picked  up  the 
rose  and  put  it  into  his  pocket. 

"I  suppose  you  will  never  tell  me  why  you  did 
that?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head.  "I  can't  tell.  I  don't  know. 
Something  took  me." 

"Did  you  think  I  came  just  for  the  rose?" 

"I  didn't  think." 

"If  I  came  for  the  rose,  I  ought  to  go.  I  wish  I 
could.  Do  you  suppose  I'll  be  able  to  work  again 
now  that  I've  seen  you?  I've  told  myself  for  three 
days  that  if  I  could  only  see  you  again  I'd  be  able  to 
stop  thinking  about  you." 

She  was  not  looking  at  him,  but  in  every  line  of 
her  figure,  in  every  quiver  of  her  lashes,  in  every 
breath  that  she  drew,  he  read  the  effect  of  his  words. 
It  was  as  if  her  whole  palpitating  loveliness  had  become 
the  vehicle  of  an  exquisite  entreaty.  Her  soul  seemed 
to  him  to  possess  the  purity,  not  of  snow,  but  of 
flame,  and  this  flame,  in  whose  light  nothing  evil 
could  live,  curved  towards  him  as  if  blown  by  a  wind. 
He  felt  suddenly  that  he  was  swept  onward  by  some 
outside  power  which  was  stronger  than  his  will.  An 


158  VIRGINIA 

enchantment  had  fallen  over  him,  and  at  one  and  the 
same  instant  he  longed  to  break  the  power  of  the 
spell  and  knew  that  life  would  cease  to  be  worth  living 
if  he  were  ever  to  do  so.  He  saw  her  eyes,  like  blue 
flowers  in  the  soft  dusk,  and  the  mist  of  curls  on  her 
temples  stirred  gently  in  the  scented  breeze  that  blew 
over  the  garden.  All  the  sweetness  of  the  world  was 
gathered  into  the  little  space  that  she  filled.  Every 
impulse  of  joy  he  had  ever  felt  —  memories  of  autumn 
roads,  of  starlit  mountains,  of  summer  fields  where 
bees  drifted  in  golden  clouds  —  all  these  were  packed 
like  honey  into  that  single  minute  of  love.  And  with 
the  awakening  of  passion,  there  came  the  exaltation, 
the  consciousness  of  illimitable  possibilities  which 
passion  brings  to  the  young.  Never  before  had  he 
realized  the  power  that  was  in  him!  Never  until  this 
instant  had  he  seen  his  own  soul  in  the  making!  All 
the  unquenchable  faith  of  youth  burned  at  white  heat 
in  the  flame  which  his  desire  had  kindled.  He  felt 
himself  divided  between  an  invincible  brutality  and  an 
invincible  tenderness.  He  would  have  fought  with 
beasts  for  the  sake  of  the  gentle  and  passive  creature 
beside  him,  yet  he  would  have  died  rather  than 
sully  the  look  of  angelic  goodness  with  which  she 
regarded  him.  To  have  her  always  gentle,  always 
passive,  never  reaching  out  her  hand,  never  descending 
to  his  level,  but  sitting  forever  aloof  and  colourless, 
waiting  eternally,  patient,  beautiful  and  unwearied, 
to  crown  the  victory  —  this  was  what  the  conquering 
male  in  him  demanded. 

"I  ought  to  go,"  he  said,  so  ineffectual  was  speech 
to  convey  the  tumult  within  his  brain.  "I  am  keeping 
you  from  the  others." 


WHITE  MAGIC  159 

She  had  shrunk  back  into  the  dimness  beyond  the 
circle  of  lanterns,  and  he  saw  her  face  like  a  pale  moon 
under  the  clustering  rose-leaves.  Her  very  breath 
seemed  suspended,  and  there  was  a  velvet  softness 
in  her  look  and  in  the  gesture  of  timid  protest  with 
which  she  responded  to  his  halting  words.  She  was 
putting  forth  all  her  woman's  power  as  innocently  as 
the  honeysuckle  puts  forth  its  fragrance.  The  white 
moths  whirling  in  their  brief  passion  over  the  lantern- 
flame  were  not  more  helpless  before  the  movement 
of  those  inscrutable  forces  which  we  call  Life.  A  strange 
stillness  surrounded  her  —  as  though  she  were  sepa 
rated  by  a  circle  of  silence  from  the  dancers  beyond 
the  rose-crowned  walls  of  the  summer-house  —  and 
into  this  stillness  there  passed,  like  an  invisible  current, 
the  very  essence  of  womanhood.  The  longing  of  all  the 
dead  women  of  her  race  flowed  through  her  into  the 
softness  of  the  spring  evening.  Things  were  there 
which  she  could  know  only  through  her  blood  —  all 
the  mute  patience,  all  the  joy  that  is  half  fear,  all  the 
age-long  dissatisfaction  with  the  merely  physical  end 
of  love  —  these  were  in  that  voiceless  entreaty  for 
happiness;  and  mingled  with  them,  there  were  the 
inherited  ideals  of  self-surrender,  of  service,  pity,  loy 
alty,  and  sacrifice. 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you,"  she  said,  and  her  voice 
thrilled  with  the  craving  to  squander  herself  magnifi 
cently  in  his  service. 

"You  are  an  angel,  and  I'm  a  selfish  beast  to  bring 
you  my  troubles." 

"I  don't  think  you  are  selfish  —  of  course  you  have 
to  think  of  your  work  —  a  man's  work  means  so 
much  to  him." 


160  VIRGINIA 

"It's  wonderful  of  you  to  feel  that,"  he  replied; 
and,  indeed,  at  the  instant  while  he  searched  her  eyes 
in  the  dusk,  the  words  seemed  to  him  to  embody  all 
the  sympathetic  understanding  with  which  his  imagi 
nation  endowed  her.  How  perfectly  her  face  ex 
pressed  the  goodness  and  gentleness  of  her  soul! 
What  a  companion  she  would  make  to  a  man!  What 
a  lover!  What  a  wife!  Always  soft,  exquisite,  tender, 
womanly  to  the  innermost  fibre  of  her  being,  and 
perfect  in  unselfishness  as  all  womanly  women  are. 
How  easy  it  would  be  to  work  if  she  were  somewhere 
within  call,  ready  to  fly  to  him  at  a  word!  How 
glorious  to  go  out  into  the  world  if  he  knew  that  she 
sat  at  home  waiting  —  always  waiting,  with  those 
eyes  like  wells  of  happiness,  until  he  should  return  to  her! 
A  new  meaning  had  entered  swiftly  into  life.  A  feeling 
that  was  like  a  religious  conversion  had  changed  not 
only  his  spiritual  vision,  but  the  material  aspect  of 
nature.  Whatever  happened,  he  felt  that  he  could 
never  be  the  same  man  again. 

"I  shall  see  you  soon?"  he  said,  and  the  words 
fell  like  snow  on  the  inner  flame  of  his  senses. 

"Oh,  soon!"  she  answered,  bending  a  little  towards 
him  while  a  sudden  glory  illumined  her  features. 
Her  voice,  which  was  vibrant  as  a  harp,  had  captured 
the  wistful  magic  of  the  spring  —  the  softness  of  the 
winds,  the  sweetness  of  flowers,  the  mellow  murmuring 
of  the  poplars. 

She  rose  from  the  bench,  moving  softly  as  if  she 
were  under  an  enchantment  which  she  feared  to  break 
by  a  gesture.  An  ecstasy  as  inarticulate  as  grief 
kept  him  silent,  and  it  was  into  this  silence  that  the 
voice  of  Abby  floated,  high,  shrill,  and  dominant. 


WHITE  MAGIC  161 

"Oh,  Virginia,  I've  looked  everywhere  for  you," 
she  cried.  "Mr.  Carrington  is  simply  dying  to  dance 
with  you!" 

She  bounced,  as  only  the  solid  actuality  can  bounce, 
into  the  dream,  precipitating  the  unwelcome  presence 
of  Mr.  Carrington  —  a  young  man  with  a  golden  beard 
and  the  manner  of  a  commercial  minor  prophet  — 
there  also.  A  few  minutes  later,  as  Virginia  drifted 
away  in  his  arms  to  the  music  of  the  waltz,  she  saw, 
over  the  heads  of  the  dancers,  Oliver  and  Abby  walk 
ing  slowly  in  the  direction  of  the  gate.  A  feeling  of 
unreality  seized  her,  as  though  she  were  looking  through 
an  azure  veil  at  the  world.  The  dancers  among 
whom  she  whirled,  the  anxious  mothers  sitting  uneasily 
on  chairs  under  the  poplars,  the  flowering  shrubs,  the 
rose-crowned  summer-house,  the  yellow  lanterns  with 
the  clouds  of  white  moths  circling  around  them  - 
all  these  things  had  turned  suddenly  to  shadows;  and 
through  a  phantom  garden,  the  one  living  figure  moved 
beside  an  empty  shape,  which  was  Abby.  Her  feet 
had  wings.  She  flew  rather  than  danced  in  the  arms 
of  a  shadow  through  this  blue  veil  which  enveloped 
her.  Life  burned  within  her  like  a  flame  in  a  porce 
lain  vase,  and  this  inner  fire  separated  her,  as  genius 
separates  its  possessor,  from  the  ordinary  mortals 
among  whom  she  moved. 

Walking  home  with  John  Henry  after  the  party  was 
over,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  lifted  up  and  cradled 
in  all  the  wonderful  freshness  of  the  spring.  The 
sweet  moist  air  fanned  her  face;  the  morning  stars 
shone  softly  on  her  through  the  pearly  mist;  and  the 
pale  fingers  of  dawn  were  spread  like  a  beneficent 
hand,  above  the  eastern  horizon.  "To-morrow!"  cried 


162  VIRGINIA 

her  heart,  overflowing  with  joy;  and  something  of  this 
joy  passed  into  the  saddest  hour  of  day  and  brightened 
it  to  radiance. 

At  the  gate  she  parted  from  John  Henry,  and  run 
ning  eagerly  along  the  path,  opened  the  front  door, 
which  was  unlocked,  and  burst  into  the  dining-room, 
where  her  mother,  wearied  of  her  long  watch,  had 
fallen  asleep  beside  the  lamp,  which  was  beginning 
to  flicker. 

"To-morrow!"  still  sang  her  heart,  and  the  wild, 
sweet  music  of  it  filled  the  world.  "To-morrow!" 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE   GREAT   MAN   MOVES 

SEVERAL  weeks  later,  at  the  close  of  a  June  after 
noon,  Cyrus  Treadwell  sat  alone  on  the  back  porch  of 
his  house  in  Bolingbroke  Street.  He  was  smoking, 
and,  between  the  measured  whiffs  of  his  pipe,  he  leaned 
over  the  railing  and  spat  into  a  bed  of  miniature  sun 
flowers  which  grew  along  the  stone  ledge  of  the  area. 
For  thirty  years  these  flowers  had  sprung  up  valiantly 
every  spring  in  that  bleak  strip  of  earth,  and  for  thirty 
years  Cyrus  had  spat  among  them  while  he  smoked 
alone  on  the  back  porch  on  June  afternoons. 

While  he  sat  there  a  great  peace  enfolded  and  pos 
sessed  him.  The  street  beyond  the  sagging  wooden 
gate  was  still;  the  house  behind  him  was  still;  the 
kitchen,  in  which  showed  the  ebony  silhouette  of  a  mas 
sive  cook  kneading  dough,  was  still  with  the  uncom 
promising  stillness  of  the  Sabbath.  In  the  midst  of 
this  stillness,  his  thoughts,  which  were  usually  as  angular 
as  lean  birds  on  a  bough,  lost  their  sharpness  of  outline 
and  melted  into  a  vague  and  feathery  mass.  At  the 
moment  it  was  impossible  to  know  of  what  he  was 
thinking,  but  he  was  happy  with  the  happiness  which 
visits  men  of  small  parts  and  of  sterile  imagination. 
By  virtue  of  these  limitations  and  this  sterility  he  had 
risen  out  of  obscurity  —  for  the  spiritual  law  which 
decrees  that  to  gain  the  world  one  must  give  up  one's 

163 


164  VIRGINIA 

soul,  was  exemplified  in  him  as  in  all  his  class.  Suc 
cess,  the  shibboleth  of  his  kind,  had  controlled  his 
thoughts  and  even  his  impulses  so  completely  for  years 
that  he  had  come  at  last  to  resemble  an  animal 
less  than  he  resembled  a  machine;  and  Nature 
(who  has  a  certain  large  and  careless  manner  of  dis 
pensing  justice)  had  punished  him  in  the  end  by  depriv 
ing  him  of  the  ordinary  animal  capacity  for  pleasure. 
The  present  state  of  vacuous  contentment  was,  per 
haps,  as  near  the  condition  of  enjoyment  as  he  would 
ever  approach. 

Half  an  hour  before  he  had  had  an  encounter 
with  Susan  on  the  subject  of  her  going  to  college, 
but  even  his  victory,  which  had  been  sharp  and 
swift,  was  robbed  of  all  poignant  satisfaction  by  his 
native  inability  to  imagine  what  his  refusal  must 
have  meant  to  her.  The  girl  had  stood  straight 
and  tall,  with  her  commanding  air,  midway  between 
the  railing  and  the  weather-stained  door  of  the 
house. 

"Father,  I  want  to  go  to  college,"  she  had  said 
quite  simply,  for  she  was  one  who  used  words  very 
much  as  Cyrus  used  money,  with  a  temperamental 
avoidance  of  all  extravagance. 

Her  demand  was  a  direct  challenge  to  the  male  in 
Cyrus,  and,  though  this  creature  could  not  be  said  to 
be  either  primitive  or  predatory,  he  was  still  active 
enough  to  defend  himself  from  the  unprovoked  assault 
of  an  offspring. 

"Tut-tut,"  he  responded.  "If  you  want  some 
thing  to  occupy  you,  you'd  better  start  about  helping 
your  mother  with  her  preserving." 

"I  put  up  seventy -five  jars  of  strawberries." 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  165 

"Well,  the  blackberries  are  coming  along.  I  was  al 
ways  partial  to  blackberries." 

He  sat  there,  bald,  shrunken,  yellow,  as  soulless  as  a 
steam  engine,  and  yet  to  Susan  he  represented  a  piti 
less  manifestation  of  destiny  —  of  those  deaf,  implac 
able  forces  by  which  the  lives  of  men  and  women  are 
wrecked.  He  had  the  power  to  ruin  her  life,  and  yet  he 
would  never  see  it  because  he  had  been  born  blind. 
That  in  his  very  blindness  had  lain  his  strength,  was  a 
fact  which,  naturally  enough,  escaped  her  for  the  mo 
ment.  The  one  thought  of  which  she  was  conscious 
was  a  fierce  resentment  against  life  because  such  men 
possessed  such  power  over  others. 

"If  you  will  lend  me  the  money,  I  will  pay  it  back  to 
you  as  soon  as  I  can  take  a  position,"  she  said,  almost 
passionately. 

Something  that  was  like  the  ghost  of  a  twinkle  ap 
peared  in  his  eyes,  and  he  let  fall  presently  one  of  his 
rare  pieces  of  humour. 

"If  you'd  like  a  chance  to  repay  me  for  your  edu 
cation,"  he  said,  "there's  your  schooling  at  Miss 
Priscilla's  still  owing,  and  I'll  take  it  out  in  help  about 
the  housekeeping." 

Then  Susan  went,  because  going  in  silence  was  the 
only  way  that  she  could  save  the  shreds  of  dignity 
which  remained  to  her,  and  bending  forward,  with  a 
contented  chuckle,  Cyrus  spat  benevolently  down  upon 
the  miniature  sunflowers. 

In  the  half  hour  that  followed  he  did  not  think  of  his 
daughter.  From  long  discipline  his  mind  had  fallen  out 
of  the  habit  of  thinking  of  people  except  in  their  re 
lation  to  the  single  vital  interest  of  his  life,  and  this 
interest  was  not  fatherhood.  Susan  was  an  incident 


166  VIRGINIA 

—  a  less  annoying  incident,  it  is  true,  than  Belinda  - 
but  still  an  incident.  An  inherent  contempt  for 
women,  due  partly  to  qualities  of  temperament  and 
partly  to  the  accident  of  a  disillusioning  marriage, 
made  him  address  them  always  as  if  he  were  speaking 
from  a  platform.  And,  as  is  often  the  case  with  men 
of  cold-blooded  sensuality,  women,  from  Belinda  down 
ward,  had  taken  their  revenge  upon  him. 

The  front  door-bell  jangled  suddenly,  and  a  little 
later  he  heard  a  springy  step  passing  along  the  hall. 
Then  the  green  lattice  door  of  the  porch  opened,  and 
the  face  of  Mrs.  Peachey,  wearing  the  look  of  unnat 
ural  pleasantness  which  becomes  fixed  on  the  features 
of  persons  who  spend  their  lives  making  the  best  of 
things,  appeared  in  the  spot  where  Susan  had  been  half 
an  hour  before.  She  had  trained  her  lips  to  smile  so 
persistently  and  so  unreasonably,  that  when,  as  now, 
she  would  have  preferred  to  present  a  serious  counte 
nance  to  an  observer,  she  found  it  impossible  to  relax 
the  muscles  of  her  mouth  from  their  expression  of  per 
petual  cheerfulness.  Cyrus,  who  had  once  remarked 
of  her  that  he  didn't  believe  she  could  keep  a  straight 
face  at  her  own  funeral,  wondered,  while  he  rose  and 
offered  her  a  chair,  whether  the  periodical  sprees  of 
honest  Tom  were  the  cause  or  the  result  of  the  look  of 
set  felicity  she  wore.  For  an  instant  he  was  tempted 
to  show  his  annoyance  at  the  intrusion.  Then,  be 
cause  she  was  a  pretty  woman  and  did  not  belong  to 
him,  he  grew  almost  playful,  with  the  playfulness  of 
an  uncertain  tempered  ram  that  is  offered  salt. 

"It  is  not  often  that  I  am  honoured  by  a  visit  from 
you,"  he  said. 

"The  honour  is  mine.     Mr.  Treadwell,"  she  replied- 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  l&T 

and  she  really  felt  it.  "  I  was  on  my  way  upstairs  to  see 
Belinda,  and  it  just  crossed  my  mind  as  I  saw  you  sit 
ting  out  here,  that  I'd  better  stop  and  speak  to 
you  about  your  nephew.  I  wonder  Belinda  doesn't 
plant  a  few  rose-bushes  along  that  back  wall,"  she 
added. 

"I'd  pay  you  fifty  dollars,  ma'am,  if  you'd  get 
Belinda  to  plant  anything"  -  which  was  not  delicately 
put,  perhaps,  but  was,  after  all,  spoken  in  the  only 
language  that  Cyrus  knew. 

"I  thought  she  was  so  fond  of  flowers.  She  used  to 
be  as  a  girl." 

"Humph !"  was  Cyrus's  rejoinder,  and  then:  "Well, 
what  about  my  nephew,  madam?"  Clasping  his  bony 
hands  over  his  knee,  he  leaned  forward  and  waited,  not 
without  curiosity,  for  her  answer.  He  did  not  admire 
Oliver  —  he  even  despised  him  —  but  when  all  was 
said,  the  boy  had  succeeded  in  riveting  his  attention. 
However  poorly  he  might  think  of  him,  the  fact  re 
mained  that  think  of  him  he  did.  The  young  man  was 
in  the  air  as  inescapably  as  if  he  were  the  measles. 

"I'm  worrying  about  him,  Mr.  Treadwell;  I  can't 
help  myself.  You  know  he  boards  with  me." 

"  Yes'm,  I  know,"  replied  Cyrus  —  for  he  had  heard 
the  fact  from  Miss  Priscilla  on  his  way  home  from 
church  one  Sunday. 

"And  he's  not  well.  There's  something  the  matter 
with  him.  He's  so  nervous  and  irritable  that  he's 
almost  crazy.  He  doesn't  eat  a  morsel,  and  I  can  hear 
him  pacing  up  and  down  his  room  until  daybreak. 
Once  I  got  up  and  went  upstairs  to  ask  him  if  he  was 
sick,  but  he  said  that  he  was  perfectly  well  and  was 
walking  about  for  exercise.  I  am  sure  I  don't  know 


168  VIRGINIA 

what  it  can  be,  but  if  it  keeps  up,  he'll  land  in  an  asylum 
before  the  summer  is  over." 

The  look  of  satisfaction  which  her  first  words  had 
brought  to  Cyrus's  face  deepened  gradually  as  her 
story  unfolded.  "He's  wanting  money,  I  reckon,"  he 
commented,  his  imagination  seizing  upon  the  only 
medium  in  which  it  could  work.  As  a  philosopher 
may  discern  in  all  life  different  manifestations  of  the 
Deity,  so  he  saw  in  all  affliction  only  the  wanting  of 
money  under  varied  aspects.  Sorrows  in  which  the 
lack  of  money  did  not  bear  a  part  always  seemed  to 
him  to  be  unnecessary  and  generally  self-inflicted  by 
the  sufferers.  Of  such  people  he  would  say  impatiently 
that  they  took  a  morbid  view  of  their  troubles  and  were 
"nursing  grief." 

"I  don't  think  it's  that,"  said  Mrs.  Peachey.  "He 
always  pays  his  bills  promptly  on  the  first  day  of  the 
month,  and  I  know  that  he  gets  checks  from  New  York 
for  the  writing  he  does.  I'm  sometimes  tempted  to 
believe  that  he  has  fallen  in  love." 

"Love?  Pshaw!"  said  Cyrus,  and  dismissed  the 
passion. 

"But  it  goes  hard  with  some  people,  and  he's  one  of 
that  kind,"  rejoined  the  little  lady,  with  spirit,  for  in 
spite  of  her  wholesome  awe  of  Cyrus,  she  could  not 
bear  to  hear  the  sentiment  derided.  "We  aren't  all  as 
sensible  as  you  are,  Mr.  Treadwell." 

"Well,  if  he  is  in  love,  as  you  say,  whom  is  he  in 
love  with?"  demanded  Cyrus. 

"It's  all  guesswork,"  answered  Mrs.  Peachey. 
"He  isn't  paying  attention  to  any  girl  that  I  know  of 
—  but,  I  suppose,  if  it's  anybody,  it  must  be  Virginia 
Pendleton.  All  the  young  men  are  crazy  about  her." 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  169 

She  had  been  prepared  for  opposition  —  she  had 
been  prepared,  being  a  lady,  for  anything,  as  she  told 
Tom  afterwards,  short  of  an  oath  —  but  to  her  amaze 
ment  the  unexpected,  which  so  rarely  happened  in  the 
case  of  Cyrus,  happened  at  that  minute.  Human 
nature,  which  she  had  treated  almost  as  a  science, 
proved  suddenly  that  it  was  not  even  an  art.  One  of 
those  glaring  inconsistencies  which  confute  every  the 
ory  and  overturn  all  psychology  was  manifested  before 
her. 

"That's  the  daughter  of  old  Gabriel,  aint  it?"  asked 
Cyrus,  and  unconsciously  to  himself,  his  voice  softened. 

"Yes,  she's  Gabriel's  daughter,  and  one  of  the 
sweetest  girls  that  ever  lived." 

"Gabriel's  a  good  man,"  said  Cyrus.  "I  always 
liked  Gabriel.  We  fought  through  the  war  together." 

"A  better  man  never  lived,  nor  a  better  woman  than 
Lucy.  If  she's  got  a  fault  on  earth,  it's  that  she's 
too  unselfish." 

"Well,  if  this  girl  takes  after  them,  the  young  fool 
has  shown  more  sense  than  I  gave  him  credit  for." 

"I  don't  think  he's  a  fool,"  returned  Mrs.  Peachey, 
reflecting  how  wonderfully  she  had  "managed"  the 
great  man,  "but,  of  course,  he's  queer  —  all  writers 
are  queer,  aren't  they?" 

"He's  kept  it  up  longer  than  I  thought,  but  I  reckon 
he's  about  ready  to  give  in,"  pursued  Cyrus,  ignoring 
her  question  as  he  did  all  excursions  into  the  region  of 
abstract  wonder.  "If  he'll  start  in  to  earn  his  living 
now,  I'll  let  him  have  a  job  on  the  railroad  out  in 
Matoaca  City.  I  meant  to  teach  him  a  lesson,  but  I 
shouldn't  like  Henry's  son  to  starve.  I've  nothing 
against  Henry  except  that  he  was  too  soft.  He  was  a 


170  VIRGINIA 

good  brother  as  brothers  go,  and  I  haven't  forgotten 
it." 

"Perhaps,  if  you'd  talk  to  Oliver,"  suggested  Mrs. 
Peachey.  "I'm  afraid  I  couldn't  induce  him  to  come 
to  you,  but " 

"Oh,  I  ain't  proud  —  I  don't  need  to  be,"  inter 
rupted  Cyrus  with  a  chuckle.  "Only  fools  and  the 
poor  have  any  use  for  pride.  I'll  look  in  upon  him 
sometime  along  after  supper,  and  see  if  he's  come  to  his 
wits  since  I  last  talked  to  him." 

"Then,  I'm  glad  I  came  to  you.  Tom  would  be 
horrified  almost  to  death  if  he  knew  of  it  —  but  I've 
always  said  that  when  an  idea  crosses  my  mind  just 
like  that,"  she  snapped  her  thumb  and  forefinger, 
"there's  something  in  it." 

As  she  rose  from  her  seat,  she  looked  up  at  him  with 
the  coquetry  which  was  so  inalienable  an  attribute  of  her 
soul  that,  had  the  Deity  assumed  masculine  shape  be 
fore  her,  she  would  instinctively  have  used  this  weapon 
to  soften  the  severity  of  His  judgment.  "It  was  so 
kind  of  you  not  to  send  me  away,  Mr.  Treadwell,"  she 
said  in  honeyed  accents. 

"It  is  a  pleasure  to  meet  such  a  sensible  woman," 
replied  Cyrus,  with  awkward  gallantry.  Her  flattery 
had  warmed  him  pleasantly,  and  in  the  midst  of  the 
dried  husks  of  his  nature,  he  was  conscious  suddenly  that 
a  single  blade  of  living  green  still  survived.  He  had 
ceased  to  feel  old  —  he  felt  almost  young  again  —  and 
this  rejuvenation  had  set  in  merely  because  a  middle- 
aged  woman,  whom  he  had  known  since  childhood, 
had  shown  an  innocent  pleasure  in  his  society.  Mrs. 
Peachey 's  traditional  belief  in  the  power  of  sex  had 
proved  its  own  justification. 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  171 

When  she  had  left  him,  Cyrus  sat  down  again,  and 
took  up  his  pipe  from  the  railing  where  he  had  placed 
it.  "  I'll  go  round  and  have  some  words  with  the  young 
scamp,"  he  thought.  "There's  no  use  waiting  until 
after  supper.  I'll  go  round  now  while  it  is  light." 

Then,  as  if  the  softening  impulse  were  a  part  of  the 
Sabbath  stillness,  he  leaned  over  the  bed  of  sunflowers, 
and  fixed  his  eyes  on  the  pinkish  tower  of  Saint  James' 
Church,  which  he  could  see  palely  enkindled  against  the 
afterglow.  A  single  white  cloud  floated  like  a  dove  in 
the  west,  and  beneath  it  a  rain  of  light  fell  on  the 
shadowy  roofs  of  the  town.  The  air  was  so  languorous 
that  it  was  as  if  the  day  were  being  slowly  smothered  in 
honeysuckle,  the  heavy  scent  of  which  drifted  to  him 
from  the  next  garden.  A  vast  melancholy  —  so  vast 
that  it  seemed  less  the  effect  of  a  Southern  summer  than 
of  a  universal  force  residing  in  nature  —  was  liberated, 
with  the  first  cooling  breath  of  the  evening,  from 
man  and  beast,  from  tree  and  shrub,  from  stock  and 
stone.  The  very  bricks,  sun-baked  and  scarred,  spoke 
of  the  weariness  of  heat,  of  the  parching  thirst  of  the 
interminable  summers. 

But  to  Cyrus  the  languor  and  the  intense  sweetness 
of  the  air  suggested  only  that  the  end  of  a  hot  day  had 
come.  "It's  likely  to  be  a  drought,"  he  was  thinking 
while  his  upward  gaze  rested  on  the  illuminated  tower 
of  the  church.  "A  drought  will  go  hard  with  the  to 
bacco." 

Having  emptied  his  pipe,  he  was  about  to  take  down 
his  straw  hat  from  a  nail  on  the  wall,  when  the  sound 
of  the  opening  gate  arrested  him,  and  he  waited  with 
his  eyes  fixed  on  the  winding  brick  walk,  where  the 
negro  washerwoman  appeared  presently  with  a  basket 


172  VIRGINIA 

of  clean  clothes  on  her  head.  Beneath  her  burden  he 
saw  that  there  were  some  primitive  attempts  at  Sunday 
adornment.  She  wore  a  green  muslin  dress,  a  little 
discoloured  by  perspiration,  but  with  many  compen 
sating  flounces;  a  bit  of  yellow  ribbon  floated  from  her 
throat,  and  in  her  hand  she  carried  the  festive  hat 
which  would  decorate  her  head  after  the  removal  of 
the  basket.  Her  figure,  which  had  once  been  graceful, 
had  grown  heavy;  and  her  face,  of  a  light  gingerbread 
colour,  with  broad,  not  unpleasant  features,  wore  a 
humble,  inquiring  look  —  the  look  of  some  trustful 
wild  animal  that  man  has  tamed  and  only  partly 
domesticated.  Approaching  the  steps,  she  brought 
down  the  basket  from  her  head,  and  came  on,  holding 
it  with  a  deprecating  swinging  movement  in  front  of  her. 

"Howdy,  Marster,"  she  said,  as  if  uncertain  whether 
to  stop  or  to  pass  on  into  the  doorway. 

"Howdy,  Mandy,"  responded  Cyrus.  "There's  a 
hot  spell  coming,  I  reckon." 

Lowering  the  basket  to  the  floor  of  the  porch,  the 
woman  drew  a  red  bandanna  handkerchief  from  her 
bosom  and  began  slowly  to  wipe  the  drops  of  sweat 
from  her  face  and  neck.  The  acrid  odour  of  her  flesh 
reached  Cyrus,  but  he  made  no  movement  to  draw 
away  from  her. 

"I'sebeen  laid  up  wid  er  stitch  in  my  side,  Marster, 
so  I'se  jes  got  dese  yer  close  done  dis  mawnin'.  Dar 
wan'  noner  de  chillen  at  home  ter  tote  um  down  yer,  so 
I  low  I  'uz  gwine  ter  drap  by  wid  um  on  my  way  ter 
church." 

As  he  did  not  reply,  she  hesitated  an  instant  and  over 
her  features,  which  looked  as  if  they  had  been  flat 
tened  by  a  blow,  there  came  an  expression  which  was 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  173 

half  scornful,  half  inviting,  yet  so  little  personal  that 
it  might  have  been  worn  by  one  of  her  treetop  ances 
tors  while  he  looked  down  from  his  sheltering  boughs 
on  a  superior  species  of  the  jungle.  The  chance  effect 
of  light  and  shadow  on  a  grey  rock  was  hardly  less 
human  or  more  primitive. 

"I'se  gittin'  moughty  well  along,  Marster,"  she  said; 
"I  reckon  I'se  gittin'  on  toward  a  hunnard." 

"Nonsense,  Mandy,  you  ain't  a  day  over  thirty -five. 
There's  a  plenty  of  life  left  in  you  yet." 

"Go  way  f'om  yer,  Marster;  you  knows  I'se  a  heap 
older  'n  dat.  How  long  ago  was  hit  I  done  fust  come 
yer  ter  you  all?" 

He  thought  a  moment.  A  question  of  calculation 
always  interested  him,  and  he  prided  himself  on  his 
fine  memory  for  dates. 

"You  came  the  year  our  son  Henry  died,  didn't 
you?  That  was  in  '66  —  eighteen  years  ago.  Why, 
you  couldn't  have  been  over  fifteen  that  summer." 

For  the  first  time  a  look  of  cunning  —  of  the  pathetic 
cunning  of  a  child  pitted  against  a  man  —  awoke  in 
her  face. 

"En  Miss  Lindy  sent  me  off  befo'  de  year  was  up, 
Marster.  My  boy  Jubal  was  born  de  mont'  atter  she 
done  tu'n  me  out."  She  hesitated  a  minute,  and  then 
added,  with  a  kind  of  savage  coquetry,  "I  'uz  a 
moughty  likely  gal,  Marster.  You  ain't  done  furgit 
dat,  is  you?" 

Her  words  touched  Cyrus  like  the  flick  of  a  whip  on 
a  sore,  and  he  drew  back  quickly  while  his  thin  lips 
grew  tight. 

"You'd  better  take  that  basket  into  the  house,"  he 
said  sharply. 


174  VIRGINIA 

In  the  negress's  face  an  expression  of  surprise  wavered 
for  a  second  and  then  disappeared.  Her  features 
resumed  their  usual  passive  and  humble  look  —  a  look 
which  said,  if  Cyrus  could  have  read  human  nature  as 
easily  as  he  read  finance,  "I  don't  understand,  but  I 
submit  without  understanding.  Am  I  not  what  you 
have  made  me?  Have  I  not  been  what  you  wanted? 
And  yet  you  despise  me  for  being  the  thing  you  made." 

"I  didn't  mean  nuttin',  Marster.  I  didn't  mean 
nuttin',"  she  protested  aloud. 

"Then  get  into  the  house,"  retorted  Cyrus  harshly, 
"and  don't  stand  gaping  there.  Any  more  of  your 
insolence  and  I'll  never  let  you  set  foot  in  this  yard 
again." 

"To'  de  Lawd,  I  didn't  mean  nuttin'!  Gawd  a' 
moughty,  I  didn't  mean  nuttin'!  I  jes  lowed  as  you 
mought  be  willin'  ter  gun  me  fo'  dollars  a  mont'  fur 
de  washin'.  My  boy  Jubal  - 

"I'll  not  give  you  a  red  cent  more.  If  you  don't 
want  it,  you  can  leave  it.  Get  out  of  here!" 

All  the  primitive  antagonism  of  race  —  that  instinct 
older  than  civilization  —  was  in  the  voice  with  which 
he  ordered  her  out  of  his  sight.  "It  was  downright 
blackmail.  The  fool  was  trying  to  blackmail  me,"  he 
thought.  "If  I'd  yielded  an  inch  I'd  have  been  at  her 
mercy.  It's  a  pretty  pass  things  have  come  to  when 
men  have  to  protect  themselves  from  negro  women." 
The  more  he  reflected  on  her  impudence,  the  stronger 
grew  his  conviction  that  he  had  acted  remarkably  well. 
"Nipped  it  in  the  root.  If  I  hadn't  -  -"he  thought. 

And  behind  him  in  the  doorway  the  washerwoman 
continued  to  regard  him,  over  the  lowered  clothes 
basket,  with  her  humble  and  deprecating  look,  which 


THE  GREAT  MAN  MOVES  175 

said,  like  the  look  of  a  beaten  animal:  "I  don't  under 
stand,  but  I  submit  without  understanding  because 
you  are  stronger  than  I." 

Taking  down  his  hat,  Cyrus  turned  away  from  her, 
and  descended  the  steps.  "I'll  look  up  Henry's  son 
before  supper,"  he  was  thinking.  "Even  if  the  boy's 
a  fool,  I'm  not  one  to  let  those  of  my  own  blood  come 
to  want." 


CHAPTER  X 

OLIVER   SURRENDERS 

WHEN  Cyrus's  knock  came  at  his  door,  Oliver  crossed 
the  room  to  let  in  his  visitor,  and  then  fell  back, 
startled,  at  the  sight  of  his  uncle.  "I  wonder  what 
has  brought  him  here?"  he  thought  inhospitably.  But 
even  if  he  had  put  the  question,  it  is  doubtful  if  Cyrus 
could  have  enlightened  him  —  for  the  great  man  was  so 
seldom  visited  by  an  impulse  that  when,  as  now,  one 
actually  took  possession  of  him,  he  obeyed  the  pres 
sure  almost  unconsciously.  Like  most  men  who  pride 
themselves  upon  acting  solely  from  reason,  he  was  the 
abject  slave  of  the  few  instincts  which  had  managed  to 
take  root  and  thrive  in  the  stony  ground  of  his  nature. 
The  feeling  for  family,  which  was  so  closely  entwined 
with  his  supreme  feeling  for  property  that  the  two  had 
become  inseparable,  moved  him  to-day  as  it  had  done  on 
the  historic  occasion  when  he  had  redeemed  the  mort 
gaged  roof  over  the  heads  of  his  spinster  relations. 
Perhaps,  too,  some  of  the  vague  softness  of  June  had 
risen  in  him  and  made  him  gentler  in  his  judgments  of 
youth. 

"I  didn't  expect  you  or  I'd  have  straightened  up  a 
bit,"  said  Oliver,  not  overgraciously,  while  he  has 
tily  pushed  his  supper  of  bread  and  tea  to  one  end  of 
the  table.  He  resented  what  he  called  in  his  mind 
"the  intrusion,"  and  he  had  no  particular  objection  to 

176 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  177 

his  uncle's  observing  his  resentment.  His  temper, 
never  of  the  most  perfect  equilibrium,  had  been  entirely 
upset  by  the  effects  of  a  June  Sunday  in  Dinwiddie, 
and  the  affront  of  Cyrus's  visit  had  become  an  indig 
nity  because  of  his  unfortunate  selection  of  the  supper 
hour.  Some  hidden  obliquity  in  the  Treadwell  soul, 
which  kept  it  always  at  cross-purposes  with  life, 
prevented  any  lessening  of  the  deep  antagonism 
between  the  old  and  the  young  of  the  race.  And  so 
incurable  was  this  obliquity  in  the  soul  of  Cyrus,  that  it 
forced  him  now  to  take  a  tone  which  he  had  resolutely 
set  his  mind  against  from  the  moment  of  Mrs. 
Peachey's  visit.  He  wanted  to  be  pleasant,  but  some 
thing  deep  down  within  him  —  some  inherited  tendency 
to  bully  —  was  stronger  than  his  will. 

"I  looked  in  to  see  if  you  hadn't  about  come  to  your 
senses,"  he  began. 

"If  you  mean  come  to  your  way  of  looking  at  things 
-  then  I  haven't,"  replied  Oliver,  and  added  in  a  more 
courteous  tone,  "Won't  you  sit  down?" 

"No,  sir,  I  can  stand  long  enough  to  say  what  I  came 
to  say,"  retorted  the  other,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that 
the  pleasanter  he  tried  to  make  his  voice,  the  harsher 
grew  the  sound  of  it  in  his  ears.  What  was  it  about  the 
rascal  that  rubbed  him  the  wrong  way  only  to  look  at 
him? 

"As  you  please,"  replied  Oliver  quietly.  "What  in 
thunder  has  he  got  to  say  to  me?"  he  thought.  "And 
why  can't  he  say  it  and  have  it  over?"  While  Cyrus 
merely  despised  him,  he  detested  Cyrus  with  all  the 
fiery  intolerance  of  his  age.  "Standing  there  like  an 
old  turkey  gobbler,  ugh!"  he  said  contemptuously  to 
himself. 


178  VIRGINIA 

"So  you  ain't  hungry  yet?"  asked  the  old  man,  and 
felt  that  the  words  were  forced  out  of  him  by  that 
obstinate  cross-grain  in  his  nature  over  which  he  had 
no  control. 

"I've  just  had  tea." 

"You  haven't  changed  your  mind  since  you  last 
spoke  to  me,  eh?" 

"No,  I  haven't  changed  my  mind.     Why  should  I?" 

"Getting  along  pretty  well,  then?" 

"As  well  as  I  expected  to." 

"That's  good,"  said  Cyrus  mildly.  "That's  good. 
I  just  dropped  in  to  make  sure  that  you  were  getting 
along,  that's  all." 

"Thank  you,"  responded  Oliver,  and  tried  from  the 
bottom  of  his  soul  to  make  the  words  sincere. 

"If  the  time  ever  comes  when  you  feel  that  you  have 
changed  your  mind,  I'll  find  a  place  out  at  Matoaca 
City  for  you.  I  just  wanted  you  to  understand  that 
I'd  do  as  much  for  Henry's  son  then  as  now.  If  you 
weren't  Henry's  son,  I  shouldn't  think  twice  about 
you." 

"You  mean  that  you'll  still  give  me  the  job  if  I  stop 
writing  plays?" 

"Oh,  I  won't  make  a  point  of  that  as  long  as  it  doesn't 
interfere  with  your  work.  You  may  write  in  off  hours 
as  much  as  you  want  to.  I  won't  make  a  point  of  that." 

"You  mean  to  be  generous,  I  can  see — but  I  don't 
think  it  likely  that  I  shall  ever  make  up  my  mind  to 
take  a  regular  job.  I'm  not  built  for  it." 

"You're  not  thinking  about  getting  married,  then,  I 
reckon?" 

A  dark  flush  rose  to  Oliver's  forehead,  and  turning 
away,  he  stared  with  unseeing  eyes  out  of  the  window. 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  179 

"No.    I  haven't  any  intention  of  that,"  he  responded. 

A  certain  craftiness  appeared  in  Cyrus's  face. 

"Well,  well,  you're  young  yet,  and  you  may  be  in 
want  of  a  wife  before  you're  many  years  older." 

"I'm  not  the  kind  to  marry.  I'm  too  fond  of  my 
freedom." 

"Most  of  us  have  felt  like  that  at  one  time  or  an 
other,  but  when  the  thought  of  a  woman  takes  you  by 
the  throat,  you'll  begin  to  see  things  differently.  And 
if  you  ever  do,  a  good  steady  job  at  twelve  hundred 
a  year  will  be  what  you'll  look  out  for." 

"I  suppose  a  man  could  marry  on  that  down  here," 
said  Oliver,  half  unconscious  that  he  was  speaking 
aloud. 

"I  married  on  less,  and  I've  known  plenty  of  others 
that  have  done  so.  A  good  saving  wife  puts  more  into 
a  man's  pocket  than  she  takes  out  of  it." 

As  he  paused,  Oliver's  attention,  which  had  wan 
dered  off  into  a  vague  mist  of  feeling,  became  suddenly 
riveted  to  the  appalling  spectacle  of  his  uncle's  mar 
riage.  He  saw  the  house  in  Bolingbroke  Street,  with 
the  worn  drab  oilcoth  in  the  hall,  and  he  smelt  the  smell 
of  stale  cooking  which  floated  through  the  green  lat 
tice  door  at  the  back.  All  the  sweetness  of  life,  all  the 
beauty,  all  the  decency  even,  seemed  strangled  in  that 
smell  as  if  in  some  malarial  air.  And  in  the  midst  of 
it,  the  unkempt,  slack  figure  of  Belinda,  with  her 
bitter  eyes  and  her  sagging  skirt,  passed  perpetually 
under  the  flickering  gas-jet  up  and  down  the  dimly 
lighted  staircase.  This  was  how  one  marriage  had 
ended  —  one  marriage  among  many  which  had  started 
out  with  passion  and  courage  and  the  belief  in  hap 
piness.  Knowing  but  little  of  the  April  brevity  of  his 


180  VIRGINIA 

uncle's  mating  impulse,  he  had  mentally  embroidered 
the  bare  instinct  with  some  of  the  idealism  in  which  his 
own  emotion  was  clothed.  His  imagination  pictured 
Cyrus  and  Belinda  starting  as  light-hearted  adven 
turers  to  sail  the  chartless  seas  of  romance.  What 
remained  of  their  gallant  ship  to-day  except  a  stark  and 
battered  hulk  wrecked  on  the  pitiless  rocks  of  the  actu 
ality?  A  month  ago  that  marriage  had  seemed  merely 
ridiculous  to  him.  Standing  now  beside  the  little 
window,  where  the  wan  face  of  evening,  languid  and 
fainting  s.weet,  looked  in  from  the  purple  twilight,  he 
was  visited  by  one  of  those  rare  flashes  of  insight  which 
come  to  men  of  artistic  sensibility  after  long  periods  of 
spiritual  warfare.  Pity  stabbed  him  as  sharply  as 
ridicule  had  done  a  moment  before,  and  with  the  first 
sense  of  human  kinship  he  had  ever  felt  to  Cyrus,  he 
understood  suddenly  the  tragedy  that  underlies  all 
comic  things.  Could  there  be  a  deeper  pathos,  after 
all,  than  simply  being  funny?  This  absurd  old  man, 
with  his  lean,  crooked  figure,  his  mottled  skin,  and  his 
piercing  bloodshot  eyes,  like  the  eyes  of  an  overgorged 
bird  of  prey,  appeared  now  as  an  object  that  moved 
one  to  tears,  not  to  laughter.  And  yet  because  of  this 
very  quality  which  made  him  pitiable  —  this  vulture- 
like  instinct  to  seize  and  devour  the  smaller  —  he  stood 
to-day  the  most  conspicuously  envied  figure  in  Din- 
widdie. 

"I'm  not  the  kind  of  man  to  marry,"  he  repeated, 
but  his  tone  had  changed. 

"Well,  perhaps  you're  wise,"  said  Cyrus,  "but  if 

you  should  ever  want  to "  The  confidence  which 

had  gone  out  of  Oliver  had  passed  into  him.  With 
his  strange  power  of  reading  human  nature  — mas- 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  181 

culine  human  nature,  for  the  silliest  woman  could 
fool  him  hopelessly  —  he  saw  that  his  nephew  was  al 
ready  beginning  to  struggle  against  the  temptation  to 
yield.  And  he  was  wise  enough  to  know  that  this 
temptation  would  become  stronger  as  soon  as  Oliver 
felt  that  the  outside  pressure  was  removed.  The 
young  man's  passion  was  putting  forward  a  subtler 
argument  than  Cyrus  could  offer. 

When  his  visitor  had  gone,  Oliver  turned  back  to  the 
window,  and  resting  his  arms  on  the  sill,  leaned  out  into 
the  velvet  softness  of  the  twilight.  His  wide  vision 
had  deserted  him.  It  was  as  if  his  gaze  had  narrowed 
down  to  a  few  roofs  and  the  single  street  without  a 
turning  —  but  beyond  them  the  thought  of  Virginia 
lay  always  like  an  enclosed  garden  of  sweetness  and 
bloom.  To  think  of  her  was  to  pass  from  the  scorching 
heat  of  the  day  to  the  freshness  of  dew-washed  flowers 
under  the  starlight. 

"It  is  impossible,"  he  said  aloud,  and  immediately, 
as  if  in  answer  to  a  challenge,  a  thousand  proofs  came 
to  him  that  other  men  were  doing  the  impossible  every 
day.  How  many  writers  —  great  writers,  too  —  would 
have  jumped  at  a  job  on  a  railroad  to  insure  them 
against  starvation?  How  many  had  married  young 
and  faced  the  future  on  less  than  twelve  hundred  dollars 
a  year?  How  many  had  let  love  lead  them  where 
it  would  without  butting  their  brains  forever  against 
the  damned  wall  of  expediency? 

"It's  impossible,"  he  said  again,  and  turning  from 
the  window,  made  himself  ready  to  go  out.  While  he 
brushed  his  hair  and  pulled  the  end  of  his  necktie 
through  the  loop,  his  gaze  wandered  back  over  the 
roofs  to  where  a  solitary  mimosa  tree  drooped  against 


182  VIRGINIA 

the  lemon-coloured  afterglow.  The  dust  lay  like 
gauze  over  the  distance.  Not  a  breath  stirred.  Not  a 
leaf  fell.  Not  a  figure  moved  in  the  town  —  except  the 
crouching  figure  of  a  stray  cat  that  crawled,  in  search 
of  food,  along  the  brick  wall  under  the  dead  tree. 

"God!  What  a  life!"  he  cried  suddenly.  And  be 
yond  this  parching  desert  of  the  present  he  saw  again 
that  enclosed  garden  of  sweetness  and  bloom,  which  was 
Virginia.  His  resolution,  weakened  by  the  long  hot  after 
noon,  seemed  to  faint  under  the  pressure  of  his  longing. 
All  the  burden  of  the  day  —  the  heat,  the  languor, 
the  scorching  thirst  of  the  fields,  the  brazen  blue  of 
the  sky,  the  stillness  as  of  a  suspended  breath  which 
wrapt  the  town  —  all  these  things  had  passed  into 
the  intolerableness  of  his  desire.  He  felt  it  like  a  hot 
wind  blowing  over  him,  and  it  seemed  to  him  that  he 
was  as  helpless  as  a  leaf  in  the  current  of  this  wind 
which  was  sweeping  him  onward.  Something  older 
than  his  will  was  driving  him;  and  this  something 
had  come  to  him  from  out  the  twilight,  where  the  mi 
mosa  trees  drooped  like  a  veil  against  the  afterglow. 

Taking  up  his  hat,  he  left  the  room  and  descended 
the  stairs  to  the  wide  hall  where  Tom  Peachey  sat, 
gasping  for  breath,  midway  of  two  open  doors. 

"I'll  be  darned  if  I  can  make  a  draught,"  muttered 
the  old  soldier  irascibly,  while  he  picked  up  his  alpaca 
coat  from  the  balustrade,  and  slipped  into  it  before 
going  out  upon  the  front  porch  into  the  possible  pres 
ence  of  ladies.  His  usually  cheerful  face  was  clouded, 
for  his  habitual  apathy  had  deserted  him,  and  he  had 
reached  the  painful  decision  that  when  you  looked 
things  squarely  in  the  face  there  was  precious  little 
that  was  worth  living  for  —  a  conclusion  to  which  he 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  183 

had  been  brought  by  the  simple  accident  of  an  over 
dose  of  Kentucky  rye  in  his  mint  julep  after  church. 
The  overdose  had  sent  him  to  sleep  too  soon  after  his 
Sunday  dinner,  and  when  he  had  awakened  from  his 
heavy  and  by  no  means  quiet  slumber,  he  had  found 
himself  confronting  a  world  of  gloom. 

"I'm  damned  tired  making  the  best  of  things,  if  you 
want  to  know  what  is  the  matter  with  me,"  he  had 
remarked  crossly  to  his  wife. 

"The  idea,  Mr.  Peachey!  You  ought  to  be  ashamed 
of  yourself!"  that  sprightly  lady  had  responded  while 
she  prepared  herself  for  her  victory  over  Cyrus. 

"Well,  I  ain't,"  honest  Tom  had  retorted.  "I've 
gone  on  pretending  for  fifty  years  and  I'm  going  to  stop 
it.  What  good  has  it  done,  anyway?  It  hasn't  put  a 
roof  on,  has  it?" 

"I  told  you  you  oughtn't  to  go  to  sleep  right  on  top 
of  your  dinner,"  she  had  replied  soothingly.  "I  de 
clare  you're  perfectly  purple.  I  never  saw  you  so 
upset.  Here,  take  this  palm -leaf  fan  and  go  and  see  if 
you  can't  find  a  draught.  You  know  it's  downright 
sinful  to  talk  that  way  after  the  Lord  has  been  so  good 
to  you." 

But  Philosophy,  though  she  is  unassailable  when 
she  clings  to  her  safeguard  of  the  universal,  meets  her 
match  whenever  she  descends  to  an  open  engagement 
with  the  particular. 

"W- what's  He  done  for  me?"  demanded  not  Tom, 
but  the  whiskey  inside  of  him. 

Driven  against  that  bleak  rock  of  fact  upon  which 
so  many  shining  generalizations  have  come  to  wreck, 
Mrs.  Peachey  had  cast  about  helplessly  for  some  float 
ing  spar  of  logic  which  might  bear  her  to  the  firm  ground 


184  VIRGINIA 

of  established  optimism.  "I  declare,  Tom,  I  believe 
you  are  out  of  your  head!"  she  exclaimed,  adding  im 
mediately,  "You  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  yourself  to 
be  so  ungrateful  when  the  good  Lord  has  kept  you  out 
of  the  poorhouse.  If  you  weren't  tipsy,  I'd  give  you  a 
hard  shaking.  Now,  you  take  that  palm-leaf  fan  and 
go  right  straight  downstairs." 

So  Tom  had  gone,  for  his  wife,  who  lacked  the  gift  of 
argument,  possessed  the  energy  of  character  which 
renders  such  minor  attributes  unnecessary;  and  Oliver, 
passing  through  the  hall  a  couple  of  hours  later,  found 
him  still  helplessly  seeking  the  draught  towards  which 
she  had  directed  him. 

"Any  chance  of  a  breeze  springing  up?"  inquired 
the  young  man  as  they  moved  together  to  the  porch. 

The  force  which  was  driving  him  out  of  the  house 
into  the  suffocating  streets  was  in  his  voice  when  he 
spoke,  but  honest  Tom  did  not  hear  it.  After  the  four 
war  years  in  which  he  had  been  almost  sublime,  the  old 
soldier  had  gradually  ceased  even  to  be  human,  and 
that  vegetable  calm  which  envelops  persons  who  have 
fallen  into  the  habit  of  sitting  still,  had  endowed  him  at 
last  with  the  perfect  serenity  of  a  cabbage.  The  only 
active  principle  which  ever  moved  in  him  was  the  bor 
rowed  principle  of  alcohol  —  for  when  that  artificial 
energy  subsided,  he  sank  back,  as  he  was  beginning  to 
do  now,  into  the  spritual  inertia  which  sustains  those 
who  have  outlived  their  capacity  for  the  heroic. 

"I  ain't  felt  a  breath,"  he  replied,  peering  south 
ward  where  the  stars  were  coming  out  in  a  cloudless 
sky.     "I  don't  reckon  we'll  get  it  till  on  about  eleven." 
"Looks  as  if  we  were  in  for  a  scorching  summer, 
doesn't  it?" 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  185 

"You  never  can  tell.  There's  always  a  spell  in 
June."  And  he  who  had  been  a  hero,  sat  down  in  his 
cane-bottomed  chair  and  waved  the  palm-leaf  fan  feebly 
in  front  of  him.  He  had  had  his  day;  he  had  fought  his 
fight;  he  had  helped  to  make  the  history  of  battles  — 
and  now  what  remained  to  him?  The  stainless  memory 
of  the  four  years  when  he  was  a  hero;  a  smoldering  em 
ber  still  left  from  that  flaming  glory  which  was  his  soul ! 

In  the  street  the  dust  lay  thick  and  still,  and  the 
wilted  foliage  of  the  mulberry  trees  hung  motionless  from 
the  great  arching  boughs.  Only  an  aspen  at  the  corner 
seemed  alive  and  tremulous,  while  sensitive  little 
shivers  ran  through  the  silvery  leaves,  which  looked  as 
if  they  were  cut  out  of  velvet.  As  Oliver  left  the  house, 
the  town  awoke  slowly  from  its  lethargy,  and  the  sound 
of  laughter  floated  to  him  from  the  porches  behind  their 
screens  of  honeysuckle  or  roses.  But  even  this  laugh 
ter  seemed  to  him  to  contain  the  burden  of  weariness 
which  oppressed  and  disenchanted  his  spirit.  The  pall 
of  melancholy  spread  from  the  winding  yellow  river 
at  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  the  procession  of  cedars  which 
stood  pitch-black  against  the  few  dim  stars  on  the 
eastern  horizon. 

"What  is  the  use?"  he  asked  himself  suddenly, 
uttering  aloud  that  grim  question  which  lies  always  be 
neath  the  vivid,  richly  clustering  impressions  in  the 
imaginative  mind.  Of  his  struggle,  his  sacrifice  — 
of  his  art  even  —  what  was  the  use?  A  bitter  de 
spondency  —  the  crushing  despondency  of  youth  which 
age  does  not  feel  and  has  forgotten  —  weighed  upon 
him  like  a  physical  burden.  And  because  he  was 
young  and  not  without  a  certain  pride  in  the  intensity 
of  his  suffering,  he  increased  his  misery  by  doggedly 


186  VIRGINIA 

refusing  to  trace  it  back  to  its  natural  origin  in  an 
empty  stomach. 

But  the  laws  that  govern  the  variable  mind  of  man 
are  as  inscrutable  as  the  secret  of  light.  Turning  into 
a  cross  street,  he  came  upon  the  tower  of  Saint  James' 
Church,  and  he  grew  suddenly  cheerful.  The  quicken 
ing  of  his  pulses  changed  the  aspect  of  the  town  as 
completely  as  if  an  invigorating  shower  had  fallen  upon 
it.  The  supreme,  haunting  interest  of  life  revived. 

He  had  meant  merely  to  pass  the  rectory  without 
stopping;  but  as  he  turned  into  the  slanting  street  at 
the  foot  of  the  twelve  stone  steps,  he  saw  a  glimmer  of 
white  on  the  terrace,  and  the  face  of  Virginia  looked 
down  at  him  over  the  palings  of  the  gate.  Immediately 
it  seemed  to  him  that  he  had  known  from  the  begin 
ning  that  he  should  meet  her.  A  sense  of  recogni 
tion  so  piercingly  sweet  that  it  stirred  his  pulses  like 
wine  was  in  his  heart  as  he  moved  towards  her. 
The  whole  universe  appeared  to  him  to  have  been 
planned  and  perfected  for  this  instant.  The  languor 
ous  June  evening,  the  fainting  sweetness  of  flowers,  the 
strange  lemon-coloured  afterglow,  and  her  face,  shining 
there  like  a  star  in  the  twilight  —  these  had  waited  for 
him,  he  felt,  since  the  beginning  of  earth.  That  fatal 
istic  reliance  upon  an  outside  Power,  which  assumed 
for  him  the  radiant  guise  of  first  love,  and  for  Susan 
the  stark  certainties  of  Presbyterianism,  dominated 
him  as  completely  as  if  he  were  the  predestined  vehicle 
of  its  expression.  Ardent,  yet  passive,  Virginia  leaned 
above  him  on  the  dim  terrace.  So  still  she  seemed  that 
her  breath  left  her  parted  lips  as  softly  as  the  perfume 
detached  itself  from  the  opening  rose-leaves.  She  made 
no  gesture,  she  said  no  word  —  but  suddenly  he  be- 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  187 

came  aware  that  her  stillness  was  stronger  to  draw  him 
than  any  speech.  All  her  woman's  mystery  was  brood 
ing  there  about  her  in  the  June  twilight;  and  in  this 
strange  strength  of  quietness  Nature  had  placed,  for 
once,  an  invincible  weapon  in  the  weaker  hands.  Her 
appeal  had  become  a  part  of  the  terrible  and  beneficent 
powers  of  Life. 

Crossing  the  street,  he  went  up  the  steps  to  where 
she  leaned  on  the  gate. 

"It  has  been  so  long,"  he  said,  and  the  words  seemed 
to  him  hideously  empty.  "I  have  not  seen  you  but 
three  times  since  the  party." 

She  did  not  answer,  and  as  he  looked  at  her  closer, 
he  saw  that  her  eyes  were  full  of  tears. 

"Virginia!"  he  cried  out  sharply,  and  the  next  in 
stant,  at  her  first  movement  away  from  him,  his  arms 
were  around  her  and  his  lips  seeking  hers. 

The  world  stopped  suddenly  while  a  starry  eternity 
enveloped  them.  All  youth  was  packed  into  that  min 
ute,  all  the  troubled  sweetness  of  desire,  all  the  fugitive 
ecstasy  of  fulfilment. 

"I  —  I  thought  you  did  not  care,"  she  murmured 
beneath  his  kisses. 

He  could  not  speak  —  for  it  was  a  part  of  his  ironic 
destiny  that  he,  who  was  prodigal  of  light  words, 
should  find  himself  stricken  dumb  in  any  crucial  in 
stant. 

"You  know  —  you  know-  he  stammered, 

holding  her  closer. 

"Then  it  —  it  is  not  all  a  dream?"  she  asked. 

"I  adored  you  from  the  first  minute  —  you  saw  that 
-  you  knew  it.  I've  wanted  you  day  and  night  since 
I  first  looked  at  you." 


188  VIRGINIA 

"But  you  kept  away.  You  avoided  me.  I  couldn't 
understand." 

"It  was  because  I  knew  I  couldn't  be  with  you  five 
minutes  without  kissing  you.  And  I  oughtn't  to  — 
it's  madness  in  me  —  for  I'm  desperately  poor,  darling; 
I've  no  right  to  marry  you." 

A  little  smile  shone  on  her  lips.  "As  if  I  cared  about 
that,  Oliver." 

"Then  you'll  marry  me?  You'll  marry  me,  my 
beautiful?" 

She  lifted  her  face  from  his  breast,  and  her  look  was 
like  the  enkindled  glory  of  the  sunrise.  "Don't  you 
see?  Haven't  you  seen  from  the  beginning?"  she 
asked. 

"I  was  afraid  to  see,  darling  —  but,  Virginia  —  oh, 
Virginia,  let  it  be  soon!" 

When  he  went  from  her  a  little  later,  it  seemed  to  him 
that  all  of  life  had  been  pressed  down  into  the  minute 
when  he  had  held  her  against  his  breast;  and  as  he 
walked  through  the  dimly  lighted  streets,  among  the 
shadows  of  men  who,  like  himself,  were  pursuing  some 
shadowy  joy,  he  carried  with  him  that  strange  vision 
of  a  heaven  on  earth  which  has  haunted  mortal  eyes 
since  the  beginning  of  love.  Happiness  appeared  to 
him  as  a  condition  which  he  had  achieved  by  a  few 
words,  by  a  kiss,  in  a  minute  of  time,  but  which  be 
longed  to  him  so  entirely  now  that  he  could  never 
be  defrauded  of  it  again  in  the  future.  Whatever 
happened  to  him,  he  could  never  be  separated  from 
the  bliss  of  that  instant  when  he  had  held  her. 

He  was  going  to  Cyrus  while  his  ecstasy  ennobled 
even  the  prosaic  fact  of  the  railroad.  And  just  as  on 
that  other  evening,  when  he  had  rushed  in  anger  away 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  189 

from  the  house  of  his  uncle,  so  now  he  was  exalted  by 
the  consciousness  that  he  was  following  the  lead  of  the 
more  spiritual  part  of  his  nature  —  for  the  line  of  least 
resistance  was  so  overgrown  with  exquisite  impressions 
that  he  no  longer  recognized  it.  The  sacrifice  of  art 
for  love  appeared  to  him  to-day  as  splendidly  romantic 
as  the  sacrifice  of  comfort  for  art  had  seemed  to  him  a 
few  months  ago.  His  desire  controlled  him  so  abso 
lutely  that  he  obeyed  its  different  promptings  under  the 
belief  that  he  was  obeying  the  principles  whose  names 
he  borrowed.  The  thing  he  wanted  was  transmuted  by 
the  fire  of  his  temperament  into  some  artificial  likeness 
to  the  thing  that  was  good  for  him. 

On  the  front  steps,  between  the  two  pink  oleanders, 
Cyrus  was  standing  with  his  gaze  fixed  on  a  small 
grocery  store  across  the  street,  and  at  the  sight  of  his 
nephew  a  look  of  curiosity,  which  was  as  personal  an 
emotion  as  he  was  in  the  habit  of  feeling,  appeared  on 
his  lean  yellow  face.  Behind  him,  the  door  into  the 
hall  stood  open,  and  his  stooping  figure  was  outlined 
against  the  light  of  the  gas-jet  by  the  staircase. 

"You  see  I've  come,"  said  Oliver;  for  Cyrus,  who 
never  spoke  first  unless  he  was  sure  of  dominating  the 
situation,  had  waited  for  him  to  begin. 

"Yes,  I  see,"  replied  the  old  man,  not  unkindly. 
"I  expected  you,  but  hardly  so  soon  —  hardly  so 


soon." 


"It's  about  the  place  on  the  railroad.  If  you  are 
still  of  the  same  mind,  I'd  like  you  to  give  me  a  trial." 

"When  would  you  want  to  start?" 

"The  sooner  the  better.  I'd  rather  get  settled  there 
before  the  autumn.  I'm  going  to  be  married  sometime 
in  the  autumn  —  October,  perhaps." 


190  VIRGINIA 

"Ah!"  said  Cyrus  softly,  and  Oliver  was  grateful 
to  him  because  he  didn't  attempt  to  crow. 

"We  haven't  told  any  one  yet  —  but  I  wanted  to 
make  sure  of  the  job.  It's  all  right,  then,  isn't  it?  " 

"Oh,  yes,  it's  all  right,  if  you  do  your  part.  She's 
Gabriel  Pendleton's  girl,  isn't  she?" 

"She's  Virginia  Pendleton.  You  know  her,  of 
course."  He  tried  honestly  to  be  natural,  but  in  spite 
of  himself  he  could  not  keep  a  note  of  constraint  out 
of  his  voice.  Merely  to  discuss  Virginia  with  Cyrus 
seemed,  in  some  subtle  way,  an  affront  to  her.  Yet  he 
knew  that  the  old  man  wanted  to  be  kind,  and  the 
knowledge  touched  him. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  know  her.  She's  a  good  girl,  and  there 
doesn't  live  a  better  man  than  Gabriel." 

"I  don't  deserve  her,  of  course.  But,  then,  there 
never  lived  a  man  who  deserved  an  angel." 

"Ain't  you  coming  in?"  asked  Cyrus. 

"Not  this  evening.  I  only  wanted  to  speak  to  you. 
I  suppose  I'd  better  go  down  to  the  office  to-morrow 
and  talk  to  Mr.  Burden,  hadn't  I?" 

"Come  about  noon,  and  I'll  tell  him  to  expect  you. 
Well,  if  you  ain't  coming  in,  I  reckon  I'll  close  this 
door." 

Looking  up  a  minute  later  from  the  pavement 
Oliver  saw  his  aunt  rocking  slowly  back  and  forth  at 
the  window  of  her  room,  and  the  remembrance  of  her 
fell  like  a  blight  over  his  happiness. 

By  the  time  he  reached  High  Street  a  wind  had 
risen  beyond  the  hill  near  the  river,  and  the  scattered 
papers  on  the  pavement  fled  like  grey  wings  before  him 
into  the  darkness.  As  the  air  freshened,  faces  appeared 
in  the  doors  along  the  way,  and  the  whole  town  seemed 


OLIVER  SURRENDERS  191 

drinking  in  the  cooling  breeze  as  if  it  were  water.  On 
the  wind  sped,  blowing  over  the  slack  figure  of  Mrs. 
Tread  well;  blowing  over  the  conquering  smile  of  Susan, 
who  was  unbinding  her  long  hair;  blowing  over  the  joy- 
brightened  eyes  of  Virginia,  who  dreamed  in  the  star 
light  of  the  life  that  would  come  to  her;  blowing  over 
the  ghost-haunted  face  of  her  mother,  who  dreamed  of 
the  life  that  had  gone  by  her;  blowing  at  last,  beyond 
the  river,  over  the  tired  hands  of  the  little  seamstress, 
who  dreamed  of  nothing  except  of  how  she  might  keep 
her  living  body  out  of  the  poorhouse  and  her  dead 
body  out  of  the  potter's  field.  And  over  the  town,  with 
its  twenty-one  thousand  souls,  each  of  whom  contained 
within  itself  a  separate  universe  of  tragedy  and  of 
joy,  of  hope  and  of  disappointment,  the  wind  passed 
as  lightly  it  passed  over  the  unquiet  dust  in  the  streets 
below. 


BOOK  II 
THE  REALITY 


193 


CHAPTER  I 

VIRGINIA    PREPARES    FOR    THE    FUTURE 

"MOTHER,  I'm  so  happy!  Oh!  was  there  ever  a 
girl  so  happy  as  I  am?" 

"I  was,  dear,  once." 

"When  you  married  father?  Yes,  I  know,"  said 
Virginia,  but  she  said  it  without  conviction.  In  her 
heart  she  did  not  believe  that  marrying  her  father  — 
perfect  old  darling  that  he  was!  —  could  ever  have 
caused  any  girl  just  the  particular  kind  of  ecstasy 
that  she  was  feeling.  She  even  doubted  whether  such 
stainless  happiness  had  ever  before  visited  a  mortal 
upon  this  planet.  It  was  not  only  wonderful,  it  was 
not  only  perfect,  but  it  felt  so  absolutely  new  that 
she  secretly  cherished  the  belief  that  it  had  been 
invented  by  the  universe  especially  for  Oliver  and 
herself.  It  was  ridiculous  to  imagine  that  the  many 
million  pairs  of  lovers  that  were  marrying  every  instant 
had  each  experienced  a  miracle  like  this,  and  yet  left 
the  earth  pretty  much  as  they  had  found  it  before 
they  fell  in  love. 

It  was  a  week  before  her  wedding,  and  she  stood 
in  the  centre  of  the  spare  room  in  the  west  wing, 
which  had  been  turned  over  to  Miss  Willy  Whitlow. 
The  little  seamstress  knelt  now  at  her  feet,  pinning 
up  the  hem  of  a  black  silk  polonaise,  and  turning 
her  head  from  time  to  time  to  ask  Mrs.  Pendleton  if 

195 


196  VIRGINIA 

she  was  "getting  the  proper  length."  For  a  quarter 
of  a  century,  no  girl  of  Virginia's  class  had  married  in 
Dinwiddie  without  the  crowning  benediction  of  a  black 
silk  gown,  and  ever  since  the  announcement  of  Vir 
ginia's  betrothal  her  mother  had  cramped  her  small 
economies  in  order  that  she  might  buy  "grosgrain" 
of  the  best  quality. 

"Is  that  right,  mother?  Do  you  think  I  might 
curve  it  a  little  more  in  front?"  asked  the  girl,  holding 
her  feet  still  with  difficulty  because  she  felt  that  she 
wanted  to  dance. 

"No,  dear,  I  think  it  will  stay  in  fashion  longer  if 
you  don't  shorten  it.  Then  it  will  be  easier  to  make 
over  the  more  goods  you  leave  in  it." 

"It  looks  nice  on  me,  doesn't  it?"  Standing  there, 
with  the  stiff  silk  slipping  away  from  her  thin  shoulders, 
and  the  dappled  sunlight  falling  over  her  neck  and 
arms  through  the  tawny  leaves  of  the  paulownia  tree 
in  the  garden,  she  was  like  a  slim  white  lily  unfolding 
softly  out  of  its  sheath. 

"Lovely,  darling,  and  it  will  be  so  useful.  I  got 
the  very  best  quality,  and  it  ought  to  wear  forever." 

"I  made  Mrs.  William  Goode  one  ten  years  ago, 
and  she's  still  wearing  it,"  remarked  Miss  Willy, 
speaking  with  an  effort  through  a  mouthful  of  pins. 

A  machine,  which  had  been  whirring  briskly  by  the 
side  window,  stopped  suddenly,  and  the  girl  who 
sewed  there  —  a  sickly,  sallow-faced  creature  of  Vir 
ginia's  age,  who  was  hired  by  Mrs.  Pendleton,  partly 
out  of  charity  because  she  supported  an  invalid  father 
who  had  been  crippled  in  the  war,  and  partly  because, 
having  little  strength  and  being  an  unskilled  worker, 
her  price  was  cheap  —  turned  for  an  instant  and  stared 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE      197 

wistfully  at  the  black  silk  polonaise  over  the  strip 
of  organdie  which  she  was  hemming.  All  her  life 
she  had  wanted  a  black  silk  dress,  and  though  she 
knew  that  she  should  probably  never  have  one,  and 
should  not  have  time  to  wear  it  if  she  ever  had,  she 
liked  to  linger  over  the  thought  of  it,  very  much  as 
Virginia  lingered  over  the  thought  of  her  lover,  or 
as  little  Miss  Willy  lingered  over  the  thought  of  having 
a  tombstone  over  her  after  she  was  dead.  In  the 
girl's  face,  where  at  first  there  had  been  only  admiration, 
a  change  came  gradually.  A  quiver,  so  faint  that  it 
was  hardly  more  than  a  shadow,  passed  over  her 
drawn  features,  and  her  gaze  left  the  trailing  yards 
of  silk  and  wandered  to  the  blue  October  sky  over  the 
swinging  leaves  of  the  paulownia.  But  instead  of  the 
radiant  autumn  weather  at  which  she  was  looking, 
she  still  saw  that  black  silk  polonaise  which  she  wanted 
as  she  wanted  youth  and  pleasure,  and  which  she 
knew  that  she  should  never  have. 

"Everything  is  finished  but  this,  isn't  it,  Miss 
Willy?"  asked  Virginia,  and  at  the  sound  of  her 
happy  voice,  that  strange  quiver  passed  again  through 
the  other  girl's  face. 

"Everything  except  that  organdie  and  a  couple  of 
nightgowns."  There  was  no  quiver  in  Miss  Willy's 
face,  for  from  constant  consideration  of  the  poorhouse 
and  the  cemetery,  she  had  come  to  regard  the  other 
problems  of  life,  if  not  with  indifference,  at  least  with 
something  approaching  a  mild  contempt.  Even  love, 
when  measured  by  poverty  or  by  death,  seemed  to 
lose  the  impressiveness  of  its  proportions. 

"And  I'll  have  enough  clothes  to  last  me  for  years, 
shan't  I,  mother?" 


198  VIRGINIA 

"I  hope  so,  darling.  Your  father  and  I  have  done 
the  best  that  we  could  for  you." 

"You've  been  angels.  Oh,  how  I  shall  hate  to 
leave  you!" 

"If  only  you  weren't  going  away,  Jinny!"  Then 
she  broke  down,  and  dropping  the  tomato-shaped  pin 
cushion  she  had  been  holding,  she  slipped  from  the 
room,  while  Virginia  thrust  the  polonaise  into  Miss 
Willy's  hands  and  fled  breathlessly  after  her. 

In  the  girl's  room,  with  her  head  bowed  on  the  top 
of  the  little  bookcase,  above  those  thin  rows  of  fiction, 
Mrs.  Pendleton  was  weeping  almost  wildly  over  the 
coming  separation.  She,  who  had  not  thought  of 
herself  for  thirty  years,  had  suddenly  broken  the 
constraint  of  the  long  habit.  Yet  it  was  character 
istic  of  her,  that  even  now  her  first  feeling,  when 
Virginia  found  her,  should  be  one  of  shame  that  she 
had  clouded  for  an  instant  the  girl's  happiness. 

"It  is  nothing,  darling.  I  have  a  little  headache, 
and  —  oh,  Jinny !  Jinny ! 

"Mother,  it  won't  be  long.  We  are  coming  back  to 
live  just  as  soon  as  Oliver  can  get  work.  It  isn't 
as  if  I  were  going  for  good,  is  it?  And  I'll  write  you 
every  day  —  every  single  day.  Mother,  dearest,  dar 
ling  mother,  I  can't  stay  away  from  you ' 

Then  Virginia  wept,  too,  and  Mrs.  Pendleton,  for 
getting  her  own  sorrow  at  sight  of  the  girl's  tears, 
began  to  comfort  her. 

"Of  course,  you'll  write  and  tell  me  everything. 
It  will  be  almost  as  if  I  were  with  you." 

"And  you  love  Oliver,  don't  you,  mother?" 

"How  could  I  help  it,  dear  —  only  I  can't  quite  get 
used  to  your  calling  your  husband  by  his  name,  Jinny. 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    199 

It  would  have  horrified  your  grandmother,  and  some 
how  it  does  seem  lacking  in  respect.  However,  I 
suppose  I'm  old-fashioned." 

"But,  mother,  he  laughs  if  I  call  him  'Mr.  Tread- 
well.'  He  says  it  reminds  him  of  his  Aunt  Belinda." 

"Perhaps  he's  right,  darling.  Anyway,  he  prefers 
it,  and  I  fancy  your  grandfather  wouldn't  have  liked 
to  hear  his  wife  address  him  so  familiarly.  Times 
have  changed  since  my  girlhood." 

"And  Oliver  has  lived  out  in  the  world  so  much, 
mother." 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Pendleton,  but  her  voice  was 
without  enthusiasm.  The  "world"  to  her  was  a 
vague  and  sinister  shape,  which  looked  like  a  bubble, 
and  exerted  a  malignant  influence  over  those  persons 
who  lived  beyond  the  borders  of  Virginia.  Her 
imagination,  which  seldom  wandered  farther  afield 
than  the  possibility  of  the  rector  or  of  Virginia  falling 
ill,  or  the  dreaded  likelihood  that  her  market  bills 
would  overrun  her  weekly  allowance,  was  incapable 
of  grasping  a  set  of  standards  other  than  the  one 
which  was  accepted  in  Dinwiddie. 

"Wherever  you  are,  Jinny,  I  hope  that  you  will 
never  forget  the  ideas  your  father  and  I  have  tried 
to  implant  in  you,"  she  said. 

"I'll  always  try  to  be  worthy  of  you,  mother." 

"Your  first  duty  now,  of  course,  is  to  your  husband. 
Remember,  we  have  always  taught  you  that  a  woman's 
strength  lies  in  her  gentleness.  His  will  must  be 
yours  now,  and  wherever  your  ideas  cross,  it  is  your 
duty  to  give  up,  darling.  It  is  the  woman's  part  to 
sacrifice  herself." 

"I  know,  mother,  I  know." 


200  VIRGINIA 

"I  have  never  forgotten  this,  dear,  and  my  marriage 
has  been  very  happy.  Of  course,"  she  added,  while 
her  forehead  wrinkled  nervously,  "there  are  not  many 
men  like  your  father." 

"Of  course  not,  mother,  but  Oliver - 

In  Mrs.  Pendleton's  soft,  anxious  eyes  the  shadow 
darkened,  as  if  for  the  first  time  she  had  grown  suspi 
cious  of  the  traditional  wisdom  which  she  was  impart 
ing.  But  this  suspicion  was  so  new  and  young  that 
it  could  not  struggle  for  existence  against  the  archaic 
roots  of  her  inherited  belief  in  the  Pauline  measure  of 
her  sex.  It  was  characteristic  of  her  —  and  indeed 
of  most  women  of  her  generation  —  that  she  would 
have  endured  martyrdom  in  support  of  the  conse 
crated  doctrine  of  her  inferiority  to  man. 

"Even  in  the  matter  of  religion  you  ought  to  yield 
to  him,  darling,"  she  said  after  a  moment  in  which 
she  had  appealed  to  that  orthodox  arbiter,  her  con 
science.  "Your  father  and  I  were  talking  about 
what  church  you  should  go  to,  and  I  said  that  I 
supposed  Oliver  was  a  Presbyterian,  like  all  of  the 
Treadwells." 

"Oh,  mother,  I  didn't  tell  you  before  because  I 
hoped  I  could  change  him  —  but  he  doesn't  go  to 
any  church  —  he  says  they  all  bore  him  equally.  He 
has  broken  away  from  all  the  old  ideas,  you  know. 
He  is  dreadfully  —  unsettled." 

The  anxiety,  which  had  been  until  then  merely  a 
shadow  in  Mrs.  Pendleton's  eyes,  deepened  into  a 
positive  pain. 

"Your  father  must  have  known,  for  he  talked  to 
him  —  but  he  wouldn't  tell  me,"  she  said. 

"I  made   father  promise  not   to.    I  hoped   so  J 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    201 

could  change  Oliver,  and  maybe  I  can  after  we're 
married,  mother." 

"If  he  has  given  up  the  old  spiritual  standards, 
what  has  he  in  place  of  them?"  asked  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
and  she  had  suddenly  a  queer  feeling  as  if  little  fine 
needles  were  pricking  her  skin. 

"I  don't  know,  but  he  seems  to  have  a  great  deal, 
more  than  any  of  us,"  answered  Virginia,  and  she 
added  passionately,  "He  is  good,  mother." 

"I  never  doubted  it,  darling,  but  he  is  young,  and 
his  character  cannot  be  entirely  formed  at  his  age. 
A  man  must  be  very  strong  in  order  to  be  good  without 
faith." 

"But  he  has  faith,  mother  —  of  some  kind." 

"I  am  not  judging  him,  my  child,  and  neither  your 
father  nor  I  would  ever  criticise  your  husband  to  you. 
Your  happiness  was  set  on  him,  and  we  can  only  pray 
from  our  hearts  that  he  will  prove  worthy  of  your 
love.  He  is  very  lovable,  and  I  am  sure  that  he  has 
fine,  generous  traits.  Your  father  has  been  completely 
won  over  by  him." 

"He  likes  me  to  be  religious,  mother.  He  says 
the  church  has  cultivated  the  loveliest  type  of  woman 
the  world  has  ever  seen." 

"Then  by  fulfilling  that  ideal  you  will  please  him 
best." 

"I  shall  try  to  be  just  what  you  have  been  to  father 
—  just  as  unselfish,  just  as  devoted." 

"I  have  made  many  mistakes,  Jinny,  but  I  don't 
think  I  have  ever  failed  in  love  —  not  in  love,  at 
least." 

Then  the  pain  passed  out  of  her  eyes,  and  because 
it  was  impossible  for  her  to  look  on  any  fact  in  life 


202  VIRGINIA 

except  through  the  transfiguring  idealism  with  which 
the  ages  had  endowed  her,  she  became  immediately 
convinced  that  everything,  even  the  unsettling  of 
Oliver's  opinions,  had  been  arranged  for  the  best. 
This  assurance  was  the  more  solacing  because  it  was 
the  result,  not  of  external  evidence,  but  of  that  in 
stinctive  decision  of  temperament  which  breeds  the 
deepest  conviction  of  all. 

"Love  is  the  only  thing  that  really  matters,  isn't 
it,  mother?" 

"A  pure  and  noble  love,  darling.  It  is  a  woman's 
life.  God  meant  it  so." 

"You  are  so  good!  If  I  can  only  be  half  as  good 
as  you  are." 

"No,  Jinny,  I'm  not  really  good.  I  have  had 
many  temptations  —  for  I  was  born  with  a  high 
temper,  and  it  has  taken  me  a  lifetime  to  learn  really 
to  subdue  it.  I  had  —  I  have  still  an  unfortunate 
pride.  But  for  your  father's  daily  example  of  humility 
and  patience,  I  don't  know  how  I  could  have  supported 
the  trials  and  afflictions  we  have  known.  Pray  to  be 
better  than  your  mother,  my  child,  if  you  want  to 
become  a  perfect  wife.  What  I  am  that  seems  good 
to  you,  your  father  has  made  me " 

"And  father  says  that  he  would  have  been  a  savage 
but  for  you." 

A  tremor  passed  through  Mrs.  Pendleton's  thin 
bosom,  and  bending  over,  she  smoothed  a  fine  darn 
in  the  skirt  of  her  alpaca  dress. 

"We  have  loved  each  other,"  she  answered.  "If 
you  and  Oliver  love  as  much,  you  will  be  happy  what 
ever  comes  to  you."  Then  choking  down  the  hard 
lump  in  her  throat,  she  took  up  her  leather  key  basket 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    203 

from  the  little  table  beside  the  bed,  and  moved  slowly 
towards  the  door.  "I  must  see  about  supper  now, 
dear,"  she  said  in  her  usual  voice  of  quiet  cheerfulness. 

Left  to  herself,  Virginia  opened  the  worn  copy  of 
the  prayer-book,  which  she  kept  at  her  bedside,  and 
read  the  marriage  service  from  beginning  to  end, 
as  she  had  done  every  day  since  her  engagement  to 
Oliver.  The  words  seemed  to  her,  as  they  seemed  to 
her  mother,  to  be  almost  divine  in  their  nobility  and 
beauty.  She  was  troubled  by  no  doubt  as  to  the 
inspired  propriety  of  the  canonical  vision  of  woman. 
What  could  be  more  beautiful  or  more  sacred  than  to 
be  "given"  to  Oliver  —  to  belong  to  him  as  utterly 
as  she  had  belonged  to  her  father?  What  could  make 
her  happier  than  the  knowledge  that  she  must  surrender 
her  will  to  his  from  the  day  of  her  wedding  until  the 
day  of  her  death?  She  embraced  her  circumscribed 
lot  with  a  passion  which  glorified  its  limitations. 
The  single  gift  which  the  ages  permitted  her  was  the 
only  one  she  desired.  Her  soul  craved  no  adventure 
beyond  the  permissible  adventure  of  being  sought 
in  marriage.  Love  was  all  that  she  asked  of  a  universe 
that  was  overflowing  with  manifold  aspects  of  life. 

Beyond  the  window  the  tawny  leaves  of  the  pau- 
lownia  were  swinging  in  the  October  sunshine,  and 
so  gay  they  seemed  that  it  was  impossible  to  imagine 
them  insensible  to  the  splendour  of  the  Indian  Summer. 
Under  the  half  bared  boughs,  on  the  green  grass  in  the 
yard,  those  that  had  already  fallen  sped  on,  like  a 
flock  of  frightened  brown  birds,  towards  the  white 
paling  fence  of  the  churchyard. 

While  she  sat  there,  with  her  prayer-book  in  her  hand, 
and  her  eyes  on  the  purple  veil  of  the  distance,  it 


204  VIRGINIA 

seemed  to  her  that  her  joy  was  so  complete  that  there 
was  nothing  left  even  to  hope  for.  All  her  life  she 
had  looked  forward  to  the  coming  of  what  she  thought 
of  vaguely  as  "happiness,"  and  now  that  it  was  here, 
she  felt  that  it  put  an  end  to  the  tremulous  expec 
tancy  which  had  filled  her  girlhood  with  such  wist 
ful  dreams.  Marriage  appeared  to  her  (and  in 
deed  to  Oliver,  also)  as  a  miraculous  event,  which 
would  make  not  only  herself,  but  every  side  of  life, 
different  for  the  future.  After  that  there  would  be 
no  vain  longings,  no  spring  restlessness,  no  hours  of 
drab  weariness,  when  the  interests  of  living  seemed  to 
crumble  from  mere  despondency.  After  that  they 
would  be  always  happy,  always  eager,  always  buoy 
antly  alive. 

Leaving  the  marriage  service,  her  thoughts  brooded 
in  a  radiant  stillness  on  the  life  of  love  which  would 
begin  for  her  on  the  day  of  her  wedding.  A  strange 
light  —  the  light  that  quivered  like  a  golden  wing  over 
the  autumn  fields  —  shone,  also,  into  the  secret  cham 
bers  of  her  soul,  and  illumined  the  things  which  had 
appeared  merely  dull  and  commonplace  until  to-day. 
Those  innumerable  little  cares  which  fill  the  lives  of 
most  women  were  steeped  in  the  magic  glow  of  this 
miraculous  charm.  She  thought  of  the  daily  excite 
ment  of  marketing,  of  the  perpetual  romance  of  mend 
ing  his  clothes,  of  the  glorified  monotony  of  pouring 
his  coffee,  as  an  adventurer  on  sunrise  seas  might 
dream  of  the  rosy  islands  of  hidden  treasure.  And  then, 
so  perfectly  did  she  conform  in  spirit  to  the  classic 
ideal  of  her  sex,  her  imagination  ecstatically  pictured 
her  in  the  immemorial  attitude  of  woman.  She  saw 
herself  waiting  —  waiting  happily  —  but  always  wait- 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    205 

ing.  She  imagined  the  thrilling  expectancy  of  the 
morning  waiting  for  him  to  come  home  to  his  dinner; 
the  hushed  expectancy  of  the  evening  waiting  for  him 
to  come  home  to  his  supper;  the  blissful  expectancy 
of  hoping  that  he  might  be  early;  the  painful  expectancy 
of  fearing  that  he  might  be  late.  And  it  seemed  to 
her  divinely  right  and  beautiful  that,  while  he  should 
have  a  hundred  other  absorbing  interests  in  his  life, 
her  whole  existence  should  perpetually  circle  around 
this  single  centre  of  thought.  One  by  one,  she  lived 
in  anticipation  all  the  exquisite  details  of  their  life 
together,  and  in  imagining  them,  she  overlooked  all 
possible  changes  that  the  years  might  bring,  as  entirely 
as  she  ignored  the  subtle  variations  of  temperament 
which  produce  in  each  individual  that  fluid  quantity 
we  call  character.  She  thought  of  Oliver,  as  she 
thought  of  hecself,  as  though  the  fact  of  marriage 
would  crystallize  him  into  a  shape  from  which  he 
would  never  alter  or  dissolve  in  the  future.  And  with 
a  reticence  peculiar  to  her  type,  she  never  once  per 
mitted  her  mind  to  stray  to  her  crowning  beatitude 
—  the  hope  of  a  child ;  for,  with  that  sacred  incon 
sistency  possible  only  to  fixed  beliefs,  though  mother 
hood  was  supposed  to  comprise  every  desire,  adven 
ture,  and  activity  in  the  life  of  woman,  it  was  con 
sidered  indelicate  for  her  to  dwell  upon  the  thought  of 
it  until  the  condition  had  become  too  obvious  for  re 
finement  to  deny. 

The  shadow  of  the  church  tower  lengthened  on  the 
grass,  and  at  the  end  of  the  cross  street  she  saw  Susan 
appear  and  stop  for  a  minute  to  speak  to  Miss  Priscilla, 
who  was  driving  by  in  a  small  wagonette.  Then  the 
girl  and  the  teacher  parted,  and  ten  minutes  later 


206  VIRGINIA 

there  came  Susan's  imperative  knock  at  Virginia's 
door. 

"Miss  Willy  told  mother  that  your  wedding  dress 
was  finished,  Jinny,  and  I  am  dying  to  see  it!" 

Going  to  the  closet,  which  was  built  into  one  corner 
of  the  wall,  Virginia  unpinned  a  long  white  sheet 
scented  with  rose-leaves,  and  brought  out  a  filmy 
mass  of  satin  and  lace.  Her  face  as  she  looked  down 
upon  it  was  the  face  of  girlhood  incarnate.  All  her 
virginal  dreams  clustered  there  like  doves  quivering 
for  flight.  Its  beauty  was  the  beauty  of  fleeting 
things  —  of  the  wind  in  the  apple  blossoms  at  dawn, 
of  the  music  of  bees  on  an  August  afternoon. 

"Mother  wouldn't  let  me  be  married  in  anything 
but  satin,"  she  said,  with  a  catch  in  her  voice.  "I 
believe  it  is  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  was  ever 
extravagant,  but  she  felt  so  strongly  about  it  that  I 
had  to  give  in  and  not  have  white  muslin  as  I  wanted 
to  do." 

"And  it's  so  lovely,"  said  Susan.  "I  had  no  idea 
Miss  Willy  could  do  it.  She's  as  proud,  too,  as  if  it 
were  her  own." 

"She  took  a  pleasure  in  every  stitch,  she  told  me. 
Oh,  Susan,  I  sometimes  feel  that  I  haven't  any  right 
to  be  so  happy.  I  seem  to  have  everything  and  other 
women  to  have  nothing." 

For  the  first  time  Susan  smiled,  but  it  was  a  smile 
of  understanding.  "Perhaps  they  have  more  than 
you  think,  darling." 

"But  there's  Miss  Willy  —  what  has  she  ever  got 
out  of  life?" 

"Well,  I  really  believe  she  gets  a  kind  of  happiness 
out  of  saving  up  the  money  to  pay  for  her  tombstone, 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    207 

It's  a  funny  thing,  but  the  people  who  ought  to  be 
unhappy,  somehow  never  are.  It  doesn't  seem  to  be 
a  matter  of  what  you  have,  but  of  the  way  you  are 
born.  Now,  according  to  us,  Miss  Willy  ought  to  be 
miserable,  but  the  truth  is  that  she  isn't  a  bit  so. 
Mother  saw  her  once  skipping  for  pure  joy  in  the 
spring." 

"But  people  who  haven't  things  can't  be  as  grateful 
to  God  as  those  who  have.  I  feel  that  I'd  like  to 
spend  every  minute  of  my  life  on  my  knees  thanking 
Him.  I  don't  see  how  I  can  ever  have  a  disappointed 
or  a  selfish  thought  again.  I  wonder  if  you  can  under 
stand,  you  precious  Susan,  but  I  want  to  open  my 
arms  and  take  the  whole  world  into  them." 

"Jinny,"  said  Susan  suddenly,  "don't  spoil  Oliver." 

"I  couldn't  — not  if  I  tried  every  minute." 

"I  don't  know,  dear.  He  is  very  lovable,  he  has 
fine  generous  traits,  he  has  the  making  of  a  big  man 
in  him  —  but  his  character  isn't  formed  yet,  you  must 
remember.  So  much  of  him  is  imagination  that  he 
will  take  longer  than  most  men  to  grow  up  to  his 
stature." 

"Oh,  Susan!"  exclaimed  Virginia,  and  turned  away. 

"Perhaps  I  oughtn't  to  have  said  it,  Jinny  — but, 
no,  I  ought  to  tell  you  just  what  I  think,  and  I  don't 
regret  it." 

"Mother  said  the  same  thing  to  me,"  responded 
Virginia,  looking  as  if  she  were  on  the  point  of  tears; 
"but  that  is  just  because  neither  of  you  know  him 
as  I  do." 

"He  is  a  Treadwell  and  so  am  I,  and  the  chief 
characteristic  of  every  Treadwell  is  that  he  is  going  to 
get  the  thing  he  wants  most.  It  doesn't  make  any 


208  VIRGINIA 

difference  whether  it  is  money  or  love  or  fame,  the 
thing  he  wants  most  he  will  get  sooner  or  later.  So 
all  I  mean  is  that  you  needn't  spoil  Oliver  by  giving 
him  the  universe  before  he  wants  it." 

"I  can't  give  him  the  universe.  I  can  only  give 
him  myself." 

Stooping  over,  Susan  kissed  her. 

"Happy,  happy  little  Jinny!" 

"There  are  only  two  things  that  trouble  me,  dear  - 
one  is  going  away  from  mother  and  father,  and  the 
other  is  that  you  are  not  so  happy  as  I  am." 

"Some  day  I  may  get  the  thing  I  want  like  every 
other  Treadwell." 

"Do  you  mean  going  to  college?" 

"No,"  said  Susan,  "I  don't  mean  that,"  and  into 
her  calm  grey  eyes  a  new  light  shone  for  an  instant. 

A  clairvoyance,  deeper  than  knowledge,  came  to 
Virginia  while  she  looked  at  her. 

"  You  darling ! "  she  exclaimed.    "I  never  suspected ! " 

"There's  nothing  to  suspect,  Jinny.  I  was  only 
joking." 

"Why,  it  never  crossed  my  mind  that  you  would 
think  of  him  for  a  minute." 

"He  hasn't  thought  of  me  for  a  minute  yet." 

"The  idea!  He'd  be  wild  about  you  in  ten  seconds 
if  he  ever  thought  — 

"He  was  wild  about  you  ten  seconds  ago,  dear." 

"He  never  was.  It  was  just  his  fancy.  Why,  you 
are  made  for  each  other." 

A  laugh  broke  from  Susan,  but  with  that  large  and 
quiet  candour  which  was  characteristic  of  her,  she  did 
not  seek  to  evade  or  deny  Virginia's  suspicion.  That 
her  friend  should  discover  her  feeling  for  John  Henry 


VIRGINIA  PREPARES  FOR  THE  FUTURE    209 

seemed  to  her  as  natural  as  that  she  should  be  con 
scious  of  it  herself  —  for  they  were  intimate  with  that 
full  and  perfect  intimacy  which  exists  only  between 
two  women  who  trust  each  other. 

"There  goes  Miss  Willy,"  said  Susan,  looking  through 
the  window  to  where  the  little  dressmaker  tripped 
down  the  stone  steps  to  the  street.  "Mother  wants 
to  have  early  supper,  so  I  must  be  running  away." 

"Good -bye,  darling.  Oh,  Susan,  I  never  loved  you 
as  I  do  now.  It  will  be  all  right  —  I  trust  and  pray 
that  it  will!  And,  just  think,  you  will  walk  out  of 
church  together  at  my  wedding!" 

For  a  minute,  standing  on  the  threshold,  Susan 
looked  back  at  her  with  an  expression  of  tender 
amusement  in  her  eyes.  "Don't  imagine  that  I'm 
unhappy,  dear,"  she  said,  "because  I'm  not  —  it  isn't 
that  kind  —  and,  after  all,  even  an  unrequited  affection 
may  be  simply  an  added  interest  in  life,  if  we  choose  to 
take  it  that  way." 

When  she  had  gone,  Virginia  lingered  over  her 
wedding  dress,  while  she  wondered  what  the  wise 
Susan  could  see  in  the  simple  John  Henry?  Was  it 
possible  that  John  Henry  was  not  so  simple,  after 
all?  Or  did  Susan,  forsaking  the  ancient  tradition  of 
love,  care  about  him  merely  because  he  was  good? 

For  a  week  the  hours  flew  by  with  golden  wings, 
and  at  last  the  most  sacred  day  of  her  life  dawned 
softly  in  a  sunrise  of  rose  and  flame.  When  she  looked 
back  on  it  afterwards,  there  were  three  things  which 
stood  out  unforgettably  in  her  memory  —  the  kiss  that 
her  mother  gave  her  when  she  turned  to  leave  her 
girlhood's  room  for  the  last  time;  the  sound  of  her 
father's  voice  as  he  spoke  her  name  at  the  altar;  and 


210  VIRGINIA 

the  look  in  Oliver's  eyes  when  she  put  her  hand  into 
his.  All  the  rest  was  enveloped  in  a  shining  mist 
which  floated,  like  her  wedding  veil,  between  the  old 
life  and  the  new. 

"It  has  been  so  perfect  —  so  perfect  —  if  I  can 
only  be  worthy  of  this  day  and  of  you,  Oliver,"  she 
said  as  the  carriage  started  from  the  rectory  gate  to 
the  station. 

"You  angel!"  he  murmured  ecstatically. 

Her  eyes  hung  blissfully  on  his  face  for  an  instant, 
and  then,  moved  by  a  sudden  stab  of  reproach,  she 
leaned  from  the  window  and  looked  back  at  her 
mother  and  father,  who  stood,  with  clasped  hands, 
gazing  after  her  over  the  white  palings  of  the  gate. 


CHAPTER  II 

VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS 

MATOACA  CITY,  West  Virginia,  October  16,  1884. 
DEAREST,  DEAREST  MOTHER: 

We  got  here  this  morning  after  a  dreadful  trip  — 
nine  or  ten  hours  late  —  and  this  is  the  first  minute 
I've  had  when  I  could  sit  down  and  write  to  you. 
All  the  way  on  the  train  I  was  thinking  of  you  and 
dear  father,  and  longing  for  you  so  that  I  could  hardly 
keep  back  the  tears.  I  don't  see  how  I  can  possibly 
stay  away  from  you  for  a  whole  year.  Oliver  says 
he  wants  to  take  me  home  for  Christmas  if  everything 
goes  all  right  with  us  here  and  his  work  proves  satis 
factory  to  the  manager.  Oh,  mother,  he  is  the  loveli 
est  thing  to  me!  I  don't  believe  he  has  thought  of 
himself  a  single  minute  since  I  married  him.  He  says 
the  only  wish  he  has  on  earth  is  to  make  me  happy  — 
and  he  is  so  careful  about  me  that  I'm  afraid  I'll  be 
spoiled  to  death  before  you  see  me  again.  He  says 
he  loves  the  little  grey  dress  of  shot  silk,  with  the 
bonnet  that  makes  me  look  like  a  Quaker.  I  wish 
now  I'd  got  my  other  hat  the  bonnet  shape  as  you 
wanted  me  to  do  —  but  perhaps,  after  all,  it  will  be 
more  useful  and  keep  in  fashion  longer  as  it  is.  When 
I  took  out  my  clothes  this  morning,  while  Oliver  was 
downstairs,  and  remembered  how  you  had  folded  and 
packed  everything,  I  just  sat  down  on  the  floor  in 

211 


212  VIRGINIA 

the  midst  of  them  and  had  a  good  cry.  I  never 
realized  how  much  I  loved  you  until  I  got  into  the 
carriage  to  come  away.  Then  I  wanted  to  jump  out 
and  put  my  arms  around  you  and  tell  you  that  you  are 
the  best  and  dearest  mother  a  girl  ever  had.  My 
things  were  so  beautifully  packed  that  there  wasn't 
a  single  crease  anywhere  —  not  even  in  the  black  silk 
polonaise  that  we  were  so  afraid  would  get  rumpled. 
I  don't  see  how  on  earth  you  folded  them  so  smoothly. 
By  the  way,  I  hardly  think  I  shall  have  any  need  of 
my  wedding  dress  while  I  am  here,  so  you  may  as  well 
put  it  away  at  home  until  I  come  back.  This  place 
seems  to  be  just  a  mining  town,  with  very  few  people 
of  our  class,  and  those  all  connected  with  the  railroad. 
Of  course,  I  may  be  mistaken,  but  from  my  first 
impressions  I  doubt  if  I'll  ever  want  to  have  much  to 
do  with  anybody  that  I've  seen.  It  doesn't  make  a 
bit  of  difference,  of  course,  because  I  shan't  be  lone 
some  a  minute  with  the  house  to  look  after  and  Oliver's 
clothes  to  attend  to;  and,  besides,  I  don't  think  a 
married  woman  ought  to  make  many  new  friends. 
Her  husband  ought  to  be  enough  for  her.  Mrs. 
Payson,  the  manager's  wife,  was  here  to  welcome  me, 
but  I  hope  I  shan't  see  very  much  of  her,  because  she 
isn't  just  exactly  what  I  should  call  ladylike.  Of 
course  I  wouldn't  breathe  this  to  any  other  living  soul, 
but  I  thought  her  entirely  too  free  and  easy  in  her  man 
ner,  and  she  dresses  in  such  very  bright  colours. 
Why,  she  had  a  red  feather  in  her  hat,  and  she  must 
have  been  married  at  least  fifteen  years.  Oliver  says 
he  doesn't  believe  she's  a  day  under  forty-five.  He 
says  he  likes  her  well  enough  and  thinks  she's  a  good 
sort,  but  he  is  awfully  glad  that  I'm  not  that  kind  of 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  213 

woman.  I  feel  sorry  for  her  husband,  for  I'm  sure 
no  man  wants  his  wife  to  make  herself  conspicuous, 
and  they  say  she  even  makes  speeches  when  she  is 
in  the  North.  Maybe  she  isn't  to  blame,  because  she 
was  brought  up  that  way,  but  I  am  going  to  see  just 
as  little  of  her  as  I  can. 

And  now  I  must  tell  you  about  our  house,  for  I 
know  you  are  dying  to  hear  how  we  are  fixed.  It's 
the  tiniest  one  you  ever  imagined,  with  a  front  yard 
the  size  of  a  pocket  handkerchief,  and  it  is  painted 
the  most  perfectly  hideous  shade  of  yellow  —  the 
shade  father  always  calls  bilious.  I  can't  understand 
why  they  made  it  so  ugly,  but,  then,  the  whole  town 
is  just  as  ugly  as  our  house  is.  The  people  here  don't 
seem  to  have  the  least  bit  of  taste.  All  the  porches 
have  dreadful  brown  ornaments  along  the  top  of  them, 
and  they  look  exactly  as  if  they  were  made  out  of 
gingerbread.  There  are  very  few  gardens,  and  nobody 
takes  any  care  of  these.  I  suppose  one  reason  is  that 
it  is  almost  impossible  to  get  servants  for  love  or 
money.  There  are  hardly  any  darkies  here,  they  say, 
and  the  few  they  have  are  perfectly  worthless.  Mrs. 
Midden  —  the  woman  who  opened  my  house  for  me  — 
hasn't  been  able  to  get  me  a  cook,  and  we'll  either 
have  to  take  our  meals  at  a  boarding-house  across  the 
street,  or  I  shall  have  to  put  to  practise  the  lessons 
you  gave  me.  I  am  so  glad  you  made  me  learn  how 
to  housekeep  and  to  cook,  because  I  am  certain  that  I 
shall  have  greater  need  of  both,  of  these  accomplish 
ments  than  of  either  drawing  or  music.  Oliver  was 
simply  horrified  when  I  told  him  so.  He  said  he'd 
rather  starve  than  see  me  in  the  kitchen,  and  he  urged 
me  to  get  you  to  send  us  a  servant  from  Dinwiddie  — 


214  VIRGINIA 

but  things  are  so  terribly  costly  here  —  you  never 
dreamed  of  such  prices  —  that  I  really  don't  believe 
we  can  afford  to  have  one  come.  Then,  Mrs.  Midden 
says  that  they  get  ruined  just  as  soon  as  they  are 
brought  here.  Everybody  tries  it  at  first,  she  told 
me,  and  it  has  always  proved  a  disappointment  in  the 
end.  I  am  perfectly  sure  that  I  shan't  mind  cooking 
at  all  —  and  as  for  cleaning  up  this  little  house  —  why, 
it  won't  take  me  an  hour  —  but  Oliver  almost  weeps 
every  time  I  mention  it.  He  is  afraid  every  instant 
he  is  away  from  me  that  I  am  lonesome  or  something 
has  happened  to  me,  and  whenever  he  has  ten  minutes 
free  he  runs  up  here  to  see  what  I  am  doing.  Do  you 
know  he  has  made  me  promise  not  to  go  out  by  myself 
until  I  am  used  to  the  place.  Isn't  that  too  absurd? 

Dearest  mother,  I  must  stop  now,  and  write  some 
notes  of  thanks  for  my  presents.  The  barrels  of  china 
haven't  come  yet,  but  the  silver  box  got  here  almost 
as  soon  as  we  did.  Freight  takes  a  long  time,  Oliver 
says.  It  will  be  such  fun  unpacking  all  my  presents 
and  putting  them  away  on  the  shelves.  I  was  so 
excited  those  last  few  days  that  I  hardly  paid  any 
attention  to  the  things  that  came.  Now  I  shall  have 
time  really  to  enjoy  them,  and  to  realize  how  sweet 
and  lovely  everybody  has  been  to  me.  Wasn't  it  too 
dear  of  Miss  Priscilla  to  give  me  that  beautiful  tea-set? 
And  I  was  so  touched  by  poor  little  Miss  Willy  spending 
her  hard-earned  money  on  that  vase.  I  wish  she 
hadn't.  It  makes  me  feel  badly  to  think  of  it  —  but 
I  don't  see  what  I  could  do  about  it,  do  you?  I  think 
I'll  try  to  send  her  a  cloak  or  something  at  Christmas. 

I  haven't  said  half  that  I  want  to  —  but  I  shall 
keep  the  rest  for  to-morrow. 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  215 

With  a  dozen  kisses  and  my  dearest  love  to  father, 
Your  ever,  ever  loving  and  grateful  daughter, 

VIRGINIA 

MATOACA  CITY.     December  25,  1884. 
DEAREST  MOTHER: 

It  almost  broke  my  heart  not  to  be  able  to  go  home 
for  Christmas.  It  doesn't  seem  like  Christmas  at 
all  away  from  you  —  though,  of  course,  I  try  not  to 
let  Oliver  see  how  I  mind  it.  He  has  so  much  to 
bother  him,  poor  dear,  that  I  keep  all  of  my  worries, 
big  and  little,  in  the  background.  When  anything 
goes  wrong  in  the  house  I  never  tell  him,  because  he 
has  so  many  important  things  on  his  mind  that  I  don't 
think  I  ought  to  trouble  him  about  small  ones.  We 
have  given  up  going  to  the  boarding-house  for  our 
meals,  because  neither  of  us  could  eat  a  morsel  of  the 
food  they  had  there  —  did  you  ever  hear  of  such  a 
thing  as  having  pie  and  preserves  for  breakfast?  - 
and  Oliver  says  it  used  to  make  him  sick  to  see 
me  in  the  midst  of  all  of  those  people.  They 
came  from  all  over  the  country,  and  hardly  anybody 
could  speak  a  grammatical  sentence.  The  man  who 
sat  next  to  me  always  said  "he  don't"  and  "I  ain't 
feeling  good  to-day"  and  once  even  "I  done  it" 
can  you  imagine  such  a  thing?  Every  other  word  was 
"guess,"  and  yet  they  had  the  impertinence  to  laugh 
at  me  when  I  said  "reckon,"  which,  I  am  sure  father 
told  me  was  Shakespearian  English.  Well,  we  stood 
it  as  long  as  we  could,  and  then  we  started  having  our 
meals  here,  and  it  is  so  much  nicer.  Oliver  says  the 
change  from  the  boarding-house  has  given  him  a  splen 
did  appetite,  and  he  enjoys  everything  that  I  make 


216  VIRGINIA 

so  much  —  particularly  the  waffles  by  Aunt  Ailsey's 
recipe.  Be  sure  to  tell  her.  At  first  I  had  a  servant, 
but  she  was  so  dreadful  that  I  let  her  go  at  the  end  of 
the  month,  and  I  really  get  on  ever  so  much  better 
without  her.  She  hadn't  the  faintest  idea  how  to 
cook,  and  had  never  made  a  piece  of  light  bread  in 
her  life.  Besides,  she  was  too  untidy  for  anything, 
and  actually  swept  the  trash  under  the  bed  except 
once  a  week  when  she  pretended  to  give  a  thorough 
cleaning.  The  first  time  she  changed  the  sheets,  I 
found  that  she  had  simply  put  on  one  fresh  one,  and 
was  going  to  use  the  bottom  one  on  top.  She  said 
she'd  never  heard  of  doing  it  any  other  way,  and  I 
had  to  laugh  when  I  thought  of  how  your  face  would 
have  looked  if  you  could  have  heard  her.  It  really 
is  the  greatest  relief  to  get  rid  of  her,  and  I'd  a  hundred 
times  rather  do  the  work  myself  than  have  another 
of  that  kind.  At  first  Oliver  hated  dreadfully  to  have 
me  do  everything  about  the  house,  but  he  is  beginning 
to  get  used  to  it  now,  because,  of  course,  I  never  let 
him  see  if  anything  happens  to  worry  me  or  if  I  am 
tired  when  he  comes  home.  It  takes  every  minute  of 
my  time,  but,  then,  there  is  nothing  else  here  that  I 
care  to  do,  and  I  never  leave  the  house  except  to  take 
a  little  walk  with  Oliver  on  Sunday  afternoon.  Mrs. 
Midden  says  that  I  make  a  mistake  to  give  a  spring 
cleaning  every  day,  but  I  love  to  keep  the  house 
looking  perfectly  spick  and  span,  and  I  make  hot 
bread  twice  a  day,  because  Oliver  is  so  fond  of  it. 
He  is  just  as  sweet  and  dear  as  he  can  be  and  wants 
to  help  about  everything,  but  I  hate  to  see  him  doing 
housework.  Somehow  it  doesn't  seem  to  me  to  look 
manly.  We  have  had  our  first  quarrel  about  who  is 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  217 

to  get  up  and  make  the  fires  in  the  morning.  Oliver 
insisted  that  he  was  to  do  it,  but  I  wake  so  much  earlier 
than  he  does,  because  I've  got  the  bread  on  my  mind, 
that  I  almost  always  have  the  wood  burning  before 
he  gets  up.  The  first  few  times  he  was  really  angry 
about  it,  and  he  didn't  seem  to  understand  why  I 
hated  so  to  wake  him.  He  says  he  hates  still  worse 
to  see  my  hands  get  rough  —  but  I  am  so  thankful 
that  I  am  not  one  of  those  girls  (like  Abby  Goode) 
who  are  forever  thinking  of  how  they  look.  But  Oliver 
made  such  a  fuss  about  the  fires  that  I  didn't  tell 
him  that  I  went  down  to  the  cellar  one  morning 
and  brought  up  a  basket  of  coal.  The  boy  didn't 
come  the  day  before,  so  there  wasn't  any  to  start 
the  kitchen  fire  with,  and  I  knew  that  by  the  time 
Oliver  got  up  and  dressed  it  would  be  too  late  to 
have  hot  rolls  for  breakfast.  By  the  way,  could 
you  have  a  bushel  of  cornmeal  sent  to  me  from  Din- 
widdie?  The  kind  they  have  here  isn't  the  least  bit 
like  the  water-ground  sort  we  have  at  home,  and  most 
of  it  is  yellow.  Nobody  ever  has  batterbread  here. 
All  the  food  is  different  from  ours.  I  suppose  that 
is  because  most  of  the  people  are  from  the  North  and 
West. 

I  have  the  table  all  set  for  our  Christmas  dinner,  and 
in  a  few  minutes  I  must  put  the  turkey  into  the  oven. 
I  was  so  glad  to  get  the  plum  pudding  in  the  Christmas 
box,  because  I  could  never  have  made  one  half  so 
good  as  yours,  and  the  fruit  cake  will  last  me  forever  — 
it  is  so  big.  I  wrote  you  about  the  box  yesterday 
just  as  soon  as  it  came,  but  after  I  had  sent  my  letter, 
I  went  back  to  it  and  found  that  rose  point  scarf 
of  grandmother's  wrapped  in  tissue  paper  in  the 


218  VIRGINIA 

bottom.  Darling  mother,  it  made  me  cry.  You 
oughtn't  to  have  given  it  to  me.  It  always  looked  so 
lovely  on  your  black  silk,  and  it  was  almost  the  last 
thing  you  had  left.  I  don't  believe  I  shall  ever  make 
up  my  mind  to  wear  it.  I  have  on  my  little  grey 
silk  to-day,  and  it  looks  so  nice.  You  must  tell 
Miss  Willy  that  it  has  been  very  much  admired. 
Mrs.  Pay  son  asked  me  if  it  was  made  in  Dinwiddie, 
and,  you  know,  she  gets  all  of  her  clothes  from  New 
York.  That  must  have  been  why  I  thought  her  over 
dressed  when  I  first  saw  her.  By  the  way,  I've 
almost  changed  my  mind  about  her  since  I  wrote 
you  what  I  thought  of  her.  I  believe  now  that  the 
whole  trouble  with  her  is  simply  that  she  isn't  a 
Southern  lady.  She  means  well,  I  am  sure,  but  she 
isn't  what  I  should  call  exactly  refined.  There's 
something  "horsey"  about  her  —  I  can't  thin,k  of 
any  other  way  to  express  it  —  something  that  reminds 
me  just  a  little  bit  of  Abby  —  and,  you  remember,  we 
always  said  Abby  got  that  from  being  educated  in 
the  North.  Tell  dearest  Susan  I  really  think  it  is 
fortunate  that  she  did  not  go  to  one  of  their  colleges. 
Mrs.  Pay  son  is  a  college  woman  and  it  seems  to  me  that 
she  is  always  trying  to  appear  as  clever  as  a  man.  She 
talks  in  a  way  sometimes  that  sounds  as  if  she  believed  in 
woman's  rights  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  I  told  Oliver 
about  it,  and  he  laughed  and  said  that  men  hated  talk 
like  that.  He  says  all  a  man  admires  in  a  woman  is  her 
power  of  loving,  and  that  when  she  begins  to  ape  a  man 
she  loses  her  charm  for  him.  I  can't  understand  why  Mr. 
Payson  married  his  wife.  He  said  such  nice  things  to  me 
the  other  day  about  my  being  so  domestic  and  such  a 
home  lover,  that  I  really  felt  sorry  for  him.  When  I  told 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  219 

him  that  I  was  so  fond  of  staying  indoors  that  I  would 
never  cross  my  threshold  if  Oliver  didn't  make  me,  he 
laughed  and  said  that  he  wished  I'd  convert  his  wife  to 
my  way  of  thinking.  Yet  he  seems  to  have  the  greatest 
admiration  for  her,  and,  do  you  know,  I  believe  he  even 
admires  that  red  feather,  though  he  doesn't  approve  of 
it.  He  never  turns  his  eyes  away  from  her  when  they  are 
together,  which  isn't  very  much,  as  she  goes  about  just  as 
she  pleases  without  him.  Can  you  understand  how  a 
person  can  both  admire  and  disapprove  of  a  thing? 
Oliver  says  he  knows  how  it  is,  but  I  must  say  that 
I  don't.  I  hope  and  pray  that  our  marriage  will 
always  be  different  from  theirs.  Oliver  and  I  are 
never  apart  for  a  single  minute  except  when  he  is  at 
work  in  the  office.  He  hasn't  written  a  line  since  we 
came  here,  but  he  is  going  to  begin  as  soon  as  we  get 
settled,  and  then  he  says  that  I  may  sit  in  the  room 
and  sew  if  I  want  to.  I  can't  believe  that  people  really 
love  each  other  unless  they  want  to  be  together  every 
instant,  no  matter  what  they  are  doing.  Why,  if 
Oliver  went  out  to  men's  dinners  without  me  as  Mr. 
Payson  does  (though  she  doesn't  seem  to  mind  it) 
I  should  just  sit  at  home  by  myself  and  cry  my  eyes 
out.  I  think  love,  if  it  is  love,  ought  to  be  all  in  all. 
I  am  perfectly  sure  that  if  I  live  to  be  a  hundred  I 
shall  never  want  any  society  but  Oliver's.  He  is  the 
whole  world  to  me,  and  when  he  is  not  here  I  spend 
my  time,  unless  I  am  at  work,  just  sitting  and  think 
ing  about  him.  My  one  idea  is  to  make  him  as 
happy  as  I  can,  and  when  a  woman  does  this  for  a 
man  I  don't  think  she  has  time  to  run  around  by 
herself  as  Mrs.  Payson  does.  Tell  dearest  father 
that  I  so  often  think  of  his  sermons  and  the  beau- 


220  VIRGINIA 

tiful  things  he  said  about  women.     The  rector  here 
doesn't  compare  with  him  as  a  preacher. 

This  is  such  a  long  letter  it  will  take  two  stamps. 
I've  just  let  myself  run  on  without  thinking  what  I 
was  writing,  so  if  I  have  made  any  mistakes  in  gram 
mar  or  in  spelling,  please  don't  let  father  see  them 
but  read  my  letter  aloud  to  him.  I  can  shut  my  eyes 
and  see  you  sitting  at  dinner,  with  Docia  bringing 
in  the  plum  pudding,  and  I  know  you  will  talk  of  me 
while  you  help  to  it.  Write  me  who  comes  to  dinner 
with  you.  I  wonder  if  Miss  Priscilla  and  John  Henry 
are  there  as  usual.  Do  you  know  whether  John  Henry 
ever  goes  to  the  Tread  well's  or  not?  I  wish  you  would 
ask  him  to  take  Susan  to  see  his  old  mammy  in  Pink 
Alley.  Now  that  I  am  not  there  to  go  to  see  her  occa 
sionally,  I  am  afraid  she  will  get  lonesome. 

Good-bye,  dearest  mother.  I  will  write  to  you 
before  New  Year.  I  am  so  busy  that  I  don't  have 
time  to  write  every  day,  but  you  will  understand 
and  so  will  father. 

With  my  heart's  fondest  love  to  you  both, 

Your 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY.    June  6,  1885. 
DARLING  MOTHER: 

The  little  patterns  were  exactly  what  I  wanted  - 
thank  you  a  thousand  times.  I  knew  you  would  be 
overjoyed  at  the  news,  and  you  are  the  only  person  I've 
breathed  it  to  —  except,  of  course,  dear  Oliver,  who  is 
frightened  to  death  already.  He  has  made  me  stop 
everything  at  once,  and  whenever  he  sees  me  lift  my 
hand,  he  begins  to  get  nervous  and  begs  me  not  to  do  it. 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS 

Oh,  mother,  he  loves  me  so  that  it  is  really  pathetic  to 
see  his  anxiety.  And  —  can  you  believe  it  —  he  doesn't 
appear  to  be  the  least  bit  glad  about  it.  When  I  told 
him,  he  looked  amazed  —  as  if  he  had  never  thought 
of  its  happening  —  and  said,  "Oh,  Virginia,  not  so 
soon!"  He  told  me  afterwards  that,  of  course,  he'd 
always  thought  we'd  have  children  after  a  while,  before 
we  were  middle-aged,  but  that  he  had  wanted  to  stay 
like  this  for  at  least  five  or  ten  years.  When  the  baby 
comes,  he  says  he  supposes  he'll  like  it,  but  that  he  can't 
honestly  say  he  is  glad.  It's  funny  how  frightened  he 
is,  because  I  am  not  the  least  bit  so.  All  women  must 
expect  to  have  children  when  they  marry,  and  if  God 
makes  them  suffer  for  it,  it  must  be  because  it  is  best 
that  they  should.  Perhaps  they  wouldn't  love  their 
babies  so  much  if  they  got  them  easily.  I  never  think 
of  the  pain  a  minute.  It  all  seems  so  beautiful  and 
sacred  to  me  that  I  can't  understand  why  Oliver  isn't 
enraptured  just  as  I  am.  To  think  of  a  new  life  starting 
into  the  world  from  me  —  a  life  that  is  half  mine  and 
half  Oliver's,  and  one  that  would  never  be  at  all  except 
for  our  love.  The  baby  will  seem  from  the  very  first 
minute  to  be  our  love  made  into  flesh.  I  don't  see 
how  a  woman  who  feels  this  could  waste  a  thought  on 
what  she  has  to  suffer. 

I  am  so  glad  you  are  going  to  send  me  a  nurse  from 
Dinwiddie,  because  I'm  afraid  I  could  never  get  one 
here  that  I  could  trust.  The  servant  Oliver  got  me  is 
no  earthly  account,  and  I  still  do  as  much  of  the  cooking 
as  I  can.  The  house  doesn't  look  nearly  so  nice  as  it 
used  to,  but  the  doctor  tells  me  that  I  mustn't  sweep,  so 
I  only  do  the  light  dusting.  I  sew  almost  all  the  time, 
and  I've  already  finished  the  little  slips.  To-day  I'm 


222  VIRGINIA 

going  to  cut  out  the  petticoats.  I  couldn't  tell  from 
the  pattern  you  sent  whether  they  fasten  in  front  or  in 
the  back.  There  are  no  places  for  buttonholes.  Do 
you  use  safety  pins  to  fasten  them  with?  The  em 
broidery  is  perfectly  lovely,  and  will  make  the  sweetest 
trimming.  I  am  using  pink  for  the  basket  because 
Oliver  and  I  both  hope  the  baby  will  be  a  girl.  If  it  is, 
I  shall  name  her  after  you,  of  course,  and  I  want  her 
to  be  just  exactly  like  you.  Oliver  says  he  can't 
understand  why  anybody  ever  wants  a  boy  —  girls 
are  so  much  nicer.  But  then  he  insists  that  if  she 
isn't  born  with  blue  eyes,  he  will  send  her  to  the 
orphanage. 

I  am  trying  to  do  just  as  you  tell  me  to,  and  to  be  as 
careful  as  I  possibly  can.  The  doctor  thinks  I've 
stayed  indoors  too  much  since  I  came  here,  so  I  go  out 
for  a  little  walk  with  Oliver  every  night.  I  am  so 
afraid  that  somebody  will  see  me  that  I  really  hate  to 
go  out  at  all,  and  always  choose  the  darkest  streets  I 
can  find.  Last  night  I  had  a  bad  stumble,  and  Oliver 
says  he  doesn't  care  if  the  whole  town  discovers  us, 
he's  not  going  to  take  me  down  any  more  unlighted 
alleys. 

It  has  been  terribly  hot  all  day  —  not  a  breath  of 
air  stirring  —  and  I  never  felt  the  heat  so  much  in  my 
life.  The  doctor  says  it's  because  of  my  condition  — 
and  last  night,  after  Oliver  went  to  sleep,  I  got  up  and 
sat  by  the  window  until  daybreak.  At  first  I  was 
dreadfully  frightened,  and  thought  I  was  going  to  stifle 
-  but  poor  Oliver  had  come  home  so  tired  that  I  made 
up  my  mind  I  wasn't  going  to  wake  him  if  I  could  pos 
sibly  help  it.  This  morning  I  didn't  tell  him  a  word 
about  it,  and  he  hasn't  the  least  idea  that  I  didn't  sleep 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  223 

soundly  all  night.  I  suppose  that's  why  I  feel  so  dragged 
and  worn  out  to-day,  just  as  if  somebody  had  given 
me  a  good  beating.  I  was  obliged  to  lie  down  most  of 
the  afternoon,  but  I  am  going  to  take  a  bath  in  a  few 
minutes  and  try  to  make  myself  look  nice  and  fresh 
before  Oliver  comes  home.  I  have  let  out  that  flowered 
organdie  —  the  one  you  liked  so  much  —  and  I  wear  it 
almost  every  evening.  I  know  I  look  dreadfully,  but 
Oliver  says  I  am  more  beautiful  than  ever.  It  seems 
to  me  sometimes  that  men  are  born  blind  where  women 
are  concerned,  but  perhaps  God  made  it  that  way  on 
purpose.  Do  you  know  Oliver  really  admires  Mrs. 
Payson,  and  he  thinks  that  red  feather  very  becoming 
to  her.  He  says  she's  much  too  good  for  her  husband, 
but  I  have  been  obliged  to  disagree  with  him  about  that. 
Even  if  Mr.  Payson  does  drink  a  little,  I  am  sure  it  is 
only  because  he  gets  lonesome  when  he  is  left  by  him 
self,  and  that  she  could  prevent  it  if  she  tried.  Oliver 
and  I  never  talk  about  these  things  because  he  sees 
that  I  feel  so  strongly  about  them. 

Oh,  darling  mother,  I  shall  be  so  glad  to  see  you!  I 
hope  and  pray  that  father  will  be  well  enough  for  you 
to  come  a  whole  month  ahead.  In  that  case  you  will 
be  here  in  less  than  two  months,  won't  you?  If  the 
baby  comes  on  the  twelfth  of  August,  she  (I  am  per 
fectly  sure  it  will  be  a  girl)  and  father  will  have  the  same 
birthday.  I  am  so  anxious  that  she  shall  be  born  on 
that  day. 

Well,  I  must  stop  now,  though  I  could  run  on  for 
ever.  I  never  see  a  living  soul  from  one  day  to  another 
-  Mrs.  Payson  is  out  of  town  —  so  when  Oliver  stays 
late  at  the  office,  and  I  am  too  tired  to  work,  I  get  a 
little  —  just  a  little  bit  lonesome.  Mr.  Payson  sent 


224  VIRGINIA 

me  a  pile  of  novels  by  Oliver  the  other  night  —  but  I 
haven't  looked  into  them.  I  always  feel  that  it  is  a 
waste  of  time  to  read  when  there  are  things  about  the 
house  that  ought  to  be  done.  I  wish  everything  didn't 
cost  so  much  here.  Money  doesn't  go  half  as  far  as  it 
does  in  Dinwiddie.  The  price  of  meat  is  almost  three 
times  as  much  as  it  is  at  home,  and  chickens  are  so 
expensive  that  we  have  them  only  twice  a  week.  It 
is  hard  to  housekeep  on  a  small  allowance,  and  now 
that  we  have  to  save  for  the  baby's  coming,  I  have  to 
count  every  penny.  I  have  bought  a  little  book  like 
yours,  and  I  put  down  all  that  I  spend  during  the  day, 
and  then  add  it  up  at  night  before  going  to  bed. 
Oliver  says  I'm  dreadfully  frugal,  but  I  am  always  so 
terribly  afraid  of  running  over  my  allowance  (which  is 
every  cent  that  we  can  afford)  and  not  having  the 
money  to  pay  the  doctor's  bills  when  they  are  due. 
Nobody  could  be  more  generous  with  money  than 
Oliver  is  —  I  couldn't  endure  being  married  to  a  stingy 
man  like  Mr.  Treadwell  —  and  the  other  day  when 
one  of  the  men  in  the  office  died,  he  sent  the  most 
beautiful  wreath  that  cost  ten  dollars.  I  am  trying 
to  save  enough  out  of  the  housekeeping  balance  to  pay 
for  it,  for  Oliver  always  runs  out  of  his  pocket  money 
before  the  middle  of  the  month.  I  haven't  bought 
anything  for  the  baby  because  you  sent  me  all 
the  materials  I  needed,  and  I  have  been  sewing 
on  those  ever  since  they  came.  Of  course  my 
own  clothes  are  still  as  good  as  new,  so  the  only 
expense  will  be  the  doctor  and  the  nurse  and  the 
extra  things  I  shall  be  obliged  to  have  to  eat  when  I 
am  sick. 

Give  dear  father  a  dozen  kisses  from  me,  and  tell  him 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  225 

to  hurry  and  get  well  so  he  can  christen  his  grand 
daughter. 

Your  devoted  and  ever  grateful 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY.     August  11,  1885. 
DARLING  MOTHER: 

Just  a  line  to  say  that  I  am  so,  so  sorry  you  can't 
come,  but  that  you  mustn't  worry  a  minute,  because 
everything  is  going  beautifully,  and  I  am  not  the  least 
bit  afraid.  The  doctor  says  he  never  saw  any  one  in  a 
better  frame  of  mind  or  so  little  nervous.  Give  my 
dear  love  to  father.  I  am  so  distressed  that  he  should 
suffer  as  he  does.  Rheumatism  must  be  such  terrible 
pain,  and  I  don't  wonder  that  you  are  frightened  lest  it 
should  go  to  his  heart.  I  shall  send  you  a  telegram  as 
soon  as  the  baby  comes. 

Your  devoted  daughter, 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY.     August   29,  1885. 
MY  PRECIOUS  MOTHER: 

This  is  the  first  time  I  have  sat  up  in  bed,  and  I  am 
trying  to  write  a  little  note  to  you  on  a  pillow  instead  of 
a  desk.  My  hand  shakes  so  that  I'm  afraid  you  won't 
be  able  to  read  it,  but  I  felt  that  I  wanted  to  send  you  a 
few  words  of  my  very  own,  not  dictated  to  the  nurse  or 
to  Mrs.  Pay  son.  I  can't  tell  you  how  perfectly  lovely 
Mrs.  Pay  son  has  been  to  me.  She  was  here  all  that 
dreadful  night,  and  I  believe  I  should  have  died  with 
out  her.  The  doctor  said  I  had  such  a  hard  time  be 
cause  I'd  let  myself  get  run  down  and  stayed  indoors 
too  much.  But  I'm  getting  all  right  now  —  and  the 


VIRGINIA 

rest  is  over  and  doesn't  matter.     As  soon  as  I  am  strong 
again  I  shall  be  perfectly  happy. 

Oh,  mother,  aren't  you  delighted  that  the  baby  is  a 
girl,  after  all?  It  was  the  first  question  I  asked  when  I 
came  back  to  consciousness  the  next  morning,  and  when 
they  told  me  it  was,  I  said,  "Her  name  is  Lucy  Pendle- 
ton,"  and  that  was  all.  I  was  so  weak  they  wouldn't 
let  me  open  my  lips  again,  and  Oliver  was  kept  out 
of  the  room  for  almost  ten  days  because  I  would 
talk  to  him.  Poor  fellow,  it  almost  killed  him.  He 
is  as  white  as  a  sheet  still,  and  looks  as  if  he 
had  been  through  tortures.  It  must  have  been  ter 
rible  for  him,  because  I  was  really  very,  very  ill  at  one 
time. 

But  it  is  all  over  now,  and  the  baby  is  the  sweetest 
thing  you  ever  imagined.  I  believe  she  knows  me 
already,  and  Mrs.  Payson  says  she  is  exactly  like  me, 
though  I  can  see  the  strongest  resemblance  to  Oliver, 
even  if  she  has  blue  eyes  and  he  hasn't.  Wasn't  it 
lovely  how  everything  came  just  as  we  wanted  it  to  — 
a  girl,  born  on  father's  birthday,  with  blue  eyes,  and 
named  Lucy?  But,  mother,  darling,  the  most  wonder 
ful  thing  of  all  was  that  you  seemed  to  be  with  me  all 
through  it.  The  whole  time  I  was  unconscious  I 
thought  you  were  here,  and  the  nurse  tells  me  that 
I  was  calling  "Mother!  Mother!"  all  that  night. 
Nothing  ever  made  me  feel  as  close  to  you  as  having  a 
baby  of  my  own.  I  never  knew  before  what  you  were 
to  me,  and  how  dearly,  dearly  I  love  you. 

The  nurse  is  taking  the  pencil  away  from  me. 

Your  loving 

VIRGINIA. 

Isn't  it  funny  that  Oliver  won't  take  any  interest  in 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  227 

the  baby  at  all?     He  says  she  caused  more  trouble 
than  she  is  worth.     Was  father  like  that? 

MATOACA  CITY.     April  3,  1886. 
DEAREST  MOTHER: 

My  last  letter  was  written  an  age  ago,  but  I  have 
been  so  busy  since  Marthy  left  that  I've  hardly  had  a 
moment  in  which  to  draw  breath.  It  was  a  blow  to  me 
that  she  wouldn't  stay  for  she  was  really  an  excellent 
nurse  and  the  baby  got  on  so  well  with  her,  but  there 
aren't  any  coloured  people  of  her  kind  here,  and  she 
got  so  homesick  for  Dinwiddie  that  I  thought  she  would 
lose  her  mind  if  she  stayed.  You  know  how  dependent 
they  are  upon  company,  and  going  out  on  Sunday 
afternoon  and  all  that  kind  of  thing,  and  there  really 
wasn't  any  amusement  for  her  except  taking  the  baby 
out  in  the  morning.  She  got  so  low  spirited  that  it 
was  almost  a  relief  when  she  went,  but  of  course  I  feel 
her  loss  dreadfully.  I  haven't  let  the  baby  out  of  my 
sight  because  I  wouldn't  trust  Daisy  with  her  for  any 
thing  in  the  world.  She  is  so  terribly  flighty.  I  have 
the  crib  brought  into  my  room  (though  Oliver  hates  it) 
and  I  take  entire  charge  of  her  night  and  day.  I 
should  love  to  do  it  if  only  Oliver  didn't  mind  it  so 
much.  He  says  I  think  more  of  the  baby  now  than  I 
do  of  him.  Isn't  that  absurd?  But  of  course  she  does 
take  every  single  minute  of  my  time,  and  I  can't  dress 
myself  for  him  every  evening  as  carefully  as  I  used  to 
do  and  look  after  all  the  housekeeping  arrangements. 
Daisy  is  a  very  poor  cook  and  she  simply  throws  the 
things  on  the  table,  but  it  seems  to  me  that  my  first 
duty  is  to  the  baby,  so  I  try  to  put  up  with  the  discom 
forts  as  well  as  I  can.  It  is  hard  to  eat  what  she  cooks 


228  VIRGINIA 

since  everything  tastes  exactly  alike,  but  I  try  to  swal 
low  as  much  as  I  can  because  the  doctor  says  that  if  I 
don't  keep  up  my  strength  I  shall  have  to  stop  nursing 
the   baby.     Wouldn't   that   be   dreadful?    It   almost 
breaks  my  heart  to  think  of  it,  and  I  am  sure  we'd 
never  get  any  artificial  food  to  agree  with  her.     She  is 
perfectly  well  now,  the  sweetest,  fattest  thing  you  ever 
saw,  and  a  real  beauty,  and  she  is  so  devoted  to  me 
that  she  cries  whenever  I  go  out  of  her  sight.     I  am 
never  tired  of  watching  her,  and  even  when  she  is 
asleep  I  sit  sometimes  for  an  hour  by  her  crib  just  think 
ing  how  pretty  she  looks  with  her  eyes  closed  and 
wishing  you  could  see  her.     Oliver  says  I  spoil  her  to 
death,  but  how  can  a  baby  of  seven  months  be  spoiled. 
He  doesn't  enjoy  her  half  as  much  as  I  do,  and  some 
times  I  almost  think  that  he  gets  impatient  of  seeing 
her  always  in  my  arms.     At  first  he  absolutely  refused 
to  have  her  crib  brought  into  our  room,  but  when  I 
cried,  he  gave  in  and  was  very  sweet  about  it.     I  feel 
so  ashamed  sometimes  of  the  way  the  house  looks,  but 
there  doesn't  seem  to  be  any  help  for  it  because  the 
doctor  says  if  I  let  myself  get  tired  it  will  be  bad  for  the 
baby.     Of  course  I  wouldn't  put  my  own  health  before 
his  comfort,  but  I  am  obliged  to  think  first  of  the  baby, 
am  I  not?     Last  night,  for  instance,  the  poor  little 
thing  was  ill  with  colic  and  I  was  up  and  down  with  her 
until  daybreak.     Then  this  morning  she  woke  early 
and  I  had  to  nurse  her  and  give  her  her  bath,  and,  added 
to  everything  else,  Daisy's  cousin  died  and  she  sent 
word  she  couldn't  come.     I  slipped  on  a  wrapper  before 
taking  a  bath  or  fixing  my  hair  and  ran  down  to  try  and 
get  Oliver's  breakfast,  but  the  baby  began  to  cry  and 
he  came  after  me  and  said  he  wanted  to  make  the  coffee 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  229 

himself.  Then  he  brought  a  cup  upstairs  to  me,  but  I 
was  so  tired  and  nervous  that  I  couldn't  drink  it.  He 
didn't  seem  to  understand  why,  feeling  as  badly  as  I 
did,  I  wouldn't  just  put  the  baby  back  into  her  crib 
and  make  her  stay  there  until  I  got  some  rest,  but  the 
little  thing  was  so  wide  awake  that  I  hadn't  the  heart  to 
do  it.  Besides,  it  is  so  important  to  keep  regular  hours 
with  her,  isn't  it?  I  don't  suppose  a  man  ever  realizes 
how  a  woman  looks  at  these  things,  but  you  will  under 
stand,  won't  you,  mother? 

I  am  all  alone  in  the  house  to-night  because  a  play  is 
in  town  that  Oliver  wanted  to  see  and  I  made  him  go  to 
it.  He  wanted  to  ask  Mrs.  Midden  to  sit  downstairs 
(she  has  offered  over  and  over  again  to  do  it)  so  that  I 
might  go  too,  but  of  course  I  wouldn't  let  him.  I  really 
couldn't  have  enjoyed  it  a  minute  for  thinking  of  the 
baby,  and  besides  I  never  cared  for  the  theatre.  Then, 
too,  he  doesn't  know  (for  I  never  tell  him)  how  very 
tired  I  am  by  the  time  night  comes.  Sometimes  when 
Oliver  comes  home  and  we  sit  in  the  dining-room  (we 
never  use  the  drawing-room,  because  it  is  across  the 
hall  and  I'm  afraid  I  shouldn't  hear  the  baby  cry)  it  is 
as  much  as  I  can  do  to  keep  my  eyes  open.  I  try  not 
to  let  him  notice  it,  but  one  night  when  he  read  me  the 
first  act  of  a  play  he  is  writing,  I  went  to  sleep,  and 
though  he  didn't  say  anything,  I  could  see  that  he  was 
very  much  hurt.  He  worries  a  good  deal  about  my 
health,  too,  and  he  even  went  out  one  day  and  engaged 
a  nurse  without  saying  anything  to  me  about  it. 
After  I  had  talked  to  her  though,  I  saw  that  she  would 
never  do,  so  I  sent  her  away  before  he  came  home.  I 
wish  I  could  get  really  strong  and  feel  well  again,  but 
the  doctor  insists  I  never  will  until  I  get  out  of  doors 


230  VIRGINIA 

and  use  my  muscles.  But  you  stay  in  the  house  all  the 
time  and  so  did  grandmother,  so  I  don't  believe  there's 
a  word  of  truth  in  what  he  says.  Anyway,  I  go  out 
every  day  now  with  the  baby. 

Thank  you  so  much  for  the  little  bands.     They  are 
just  what  I  wanted. 
With  dearest  love, 

Your  devoted 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY.    June  10,  1886. 
DEAREST  MOTHER: 

Daisy  left  a  week  ago  and  we  couldn't  find  another 
servant  until  to-day.  I  must  say  that  I  prefer  coloured 
servants.  They  are  so  much  more  dependable.  I 
didn't  know  until  the  evening  before  Daisy  left  that 
she  was  going,  and  I  had  to  send  Oliver  straight  out  to 
see  if  he  could  find  somebody  to  come  in  and  help  me. 
There  wasn't  a  soul  to  be  had  until  to-day,  however, 
so  for  a  week  I  was  obliged  to  make  Oliver  get  his  din 
ner  at  the  boarding-house.  It  doesn't  make  any  dif 
ference  what  I  have  because  I  haven't  a  particle  of 
appetite,  and  I'd  just  as  soon  eat  tea  and  toast  as  any 
thing  else.  Of  course,  but  for  the  baby  I  could  have 
managed  perfectly  well  —  but  she  has  been  so  fretful 
of  late  that  she  doesn't  let  me  put  her  down  a  minute. 
The  doctor  says  her  teeth  are  beginning  to  hurt  her, 
and  that  I  must  expect  to  have  trouble  the  first  sum 
mer.  She  has  been  so  well  until  now  that  he  thinks  it 
has  been  really  remarkable.  He  tells  me  he  never 
knew  a  healthier  baby,  but  of  course  I  am  terribly 
anxious  about  her  teething  in  the  hot  weather.  If  she 
grows  much  more  fretful  I'm  afraid  I  shall  have  to  take 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  231 

her  to  the  country  for  July  and  August.  It  seems 
dreadful  to  leave  Oliver  all  alone,  but  I  don't  see  how  I 
can  help  it  if  the  doctor  advises  me  to  go.  Oliver  has 
gone  to  some  musical  comedy  at  the  Academy  to-night, 
and  I  am  so  tired  that  I  am  going  to  bed  just  as  soon  as 
I  finish  this  letter.  I  hope  and  pray  that  the  baby  will 
have  a  quiet  night.  Don't  you  think  that  Daisy 
treated  me  very  badly  considering  how  kind  I  had  been 
to  her?  Only  a  week  ago  when  she  was  taken  with 
pain  in  the  night,  I  got  up  and  made  her  a  mustard 
plaster  and  sat  by  her  bed  until  she  felt  easier.  The 
next  day  I  did  all  of  her  work,  and  yet  she  has  so  little 
gratitude  that  she  could  leave  me  this  way  when  she 
knows  perfectly  well  that  I  am  worried  to  death  about 
the  baby's  first  summer.  I'd  give  anything  if  I  could 
go  home  in  July  as  you  suggest,  but  it  is  such  a  long 
trip,  and  the  heat  will  probably  be  quite  as  bad  in 
Dinwiddie  as  here.  Of  course,  it  would  make  all  the 
difference  in  the  world  to  me  to  be  where  I  could  have 
you  to  advise  me  about  the  baby,  and  I'd  go  to-morrow 
if  it  only  wasn't  so  far.  Mrs.  Midden  has  told  me  of  a 
boarding-house  in  the  country  not  more  than  twenty 
miles  from  here  where  Oliver  could  come  down  every 
evening,  and  we  may  decide  to  go  there  for  a  month 
or  two.  I  can't  help  feeling  very  anxious,  especially 
as  Mrs.  Scott's  little  boy  —  he  is  just  the  age  of  baby 
-  was  taken  ill  the  other  night,  and  they  thought  he 
would  die  before  they  could  get  a  doctor. 

This  letter  is  full  of  my  worries,  but  in  spite  of  them 
I  am  the  happiest  woman  that  ever  lived.  Oliver  is 
the  best  thing  to  me  you  can  imagine,  and  the  baby  is 
so  fascinating  that  I  enjoy  every  minute  I  am  with  her. 
It  is  the  greatest  fun  to  watch  her  in  her  bath.  I  know 


232  VIRGINIA 

you  would  simply  go  into  raptures  over  her— and  she  is  so 
bright  that  she  already  understands  every  word  that  I  say. 
She  grows  more  like  Oliver  all  the  time,  and  the  other  day 
while  I  was  watching  her  playing  with  her  rubber  doll, 
she  looked  so  beautiful  that  it  almost  frightened  me. 

I  am  so  glad  dear  father  is  well,  and  what  you  wrote 
me  about  John  Henry's  admiration  for  Susan  inter 
ested  me  so  much  that  I  sat  straight  down  and  wrote 
to  him.     Why  do  you  think  that  it  is  only  friendship 
and  that  he  isn't  in  love  with  her?     If  he  really  thinks 
her  the  "finest  girl  in  the  world,"  I  should  imagine  he 
was  beginning  to  be  pretty  serious.     I  am  delighted  to 
hear  that  he  is  going  to  take  her  to  the  festival.     Tell 
Susan  from  me  that  I  shall  never  be  satisfied  until  she 
is  as  happy  as  I  am.     Mr.  Treadwell  was  right,  I  be 
lieve,  not  to  let  her  go  to  college,  though  of   course   I 
want  dear  Susan  to  have  whatever  she  sets  her  heart  on. 
But,  when  all  is  said,  you  were  wise  in  teaching  me  that 
nothing  matters  to  a  woman  except  love.     More  and 
more  I  am  learning  that  if  we  only  love  unselfishly 
enough,  everything  else  will  work  out  for  good  to  us.  My 
little  worries  can't  keep  me  from  being  so  blissfully  happy 
that  I  want  to  sing  all  the  time.     Work  is  a  joy  to  me  be 
cause  I  feel  that  I  am  doing  it  for  Oliver  and  the  baby. 
And  with  two  such  treasures  to  live  for  I  should  be  the 
most  ungrateful  creature  alive  if  I  ever  complained. 
Your  ever  loving  daughter, 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY,  July  1,  1886. 
DEAREST  MOTHER: 

We  are  leaving  suddenly  for  the  country,  and  I'll  send 
our  address  just  as  soon  as  we  get  there.     The  doctor 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  233 

thinks  I  ought  to  take  the  baby  away  from  town,  so  I  am 
going  to  the  boarding-house  I  wrote  you  about.  Oliver 
will  come  down  every  evening  —  it's  only  an  hour's 
trip. 

I  am  so  tired  from  packing  that  I  can't  write  any  more. 

Lovingly, 

VIRGINIA. 

MATOACA  CITY.     September  15,  1886. 
DEAREST  MOTHER: 

Here  we  are  back  again  in  our  home,  and  I  was  never 
so  thankful  in  my  life  to  get  away  from  any  place.  I 
wrote  you  how  dreadfully  inconvenient  it  was,  but  it 
would  take  pages  to  tell  you  all  of  my  experiences  in  the 
last  few  days.  Such  people  you  never  saw  in  your  life! 
And  the  food  got  so  uneatable  that  I  lived  on  crackers 
for  the  last  fortnight.  Fortunately,  I  was  still  nursing 
the  baby,  but  the  doctor  has  just  told  me  that  I  must 
stop.  I  am  so  distressed  about  it.  Do  you  think  it 
will  go  hard  with  her  after  the  first  year?  She  is  as 
fat  and  well  as  she  can  be  now,  but  I  live  in  hourly 
terror  of  her  getting  sick.  If  anything  should  happen 
to  her,  I  believe  it  would  kill  me. 

Oliver  sends  love.  He  is  working  very  hard  at  the 
office  now,  and  he  hates  it. 

Your  loving 

VIRGINIA. 

I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Mrs.  Midden  has  found  me 
such  a  nice  servant.  She  is  a  very  young  coloured 
girl,  but  looks  so  kind  and  capable,  and  says  she  is 
perfectly  devoted  to  children.  Her  name  is  Marthy, 
and  I  feel  that  she's  going  to  be  a  great  comfort  to 
me. 


234  VIRGINIA 

MATOACA  CITY.     October  12,  1886. 
MY  DARLING  MOTHER: 

I  was  overjoyed  to  find  your  letter  in  the  hall  when 
I  came  out  from  breakfast.  Has  it  really  been  two 
weeks  since  I  wrote  to  you?  That  seems  dreadful,  but 
the  days  go  by  so  fast  that  I  hardly  realize  how  long  it 
is  between  my  letters. 

We  are  all  well,  and  Marthy  has  become  the  greatest 
help  to  me.  Of  course,  I  don't  let  her  do  anything  for 
the  baby,  but  she  is  so  careful  and  trustworthy  that  I 
am  going  to  try  having  her  take  out  the  carriage  in  the 
morning.  At  first  I  shan't  let  her  go  off  the  block,  so 
that  I  can  have  my  eye  on  her  all  the  time.  Little 
Lucy  took  a  fancy  to  her  at  once,  and  really  enjoys  play 
ing  with  her.  This  makes  it  possible  for  me  to  do  a 
little  sewing,  and  I  am  working  hard  trying  to  make 
over  one  or  two  of  my  dresses.  Oliver  wants  me  to 
have  a  dressmaker  do  it,  but  we  have  so  many  extra 
expenses  all  the  time  that  I  don't  feel  we  can  afford  to 
put  out  any  sewing.  We  have  spent  a  great  deal  on 
doctors  since  we  were  married,  but  of  course  with  a 
young  child  we  can't  very  well  expect  anything  else. 

And  now,  dearest  mother,  I  have  something  to  tell 
you,  which  no  one  knows  —  not  even  Oliver  —  except 
Doctor  Marshall  and  myself.  We  are  going  to  have 
another  darling  baby  in  March,  if  everything  goes  as 
it  ought  to.  I  have  kept  it  a  secret  because  Oliver  has 
had  a  good  many  business  worries,  and  I  knew  it  would 
make  him  miserable.  It  never  seems  to  have  entered 
his  head  that  it  might  happen  again  so  soon,  and  for 
his  sake  I  do  wish  we  could  have  waited  until  we  got 
a  little  more  money  in  the  bank,  but  I  suppose  I 
oughtn't  to  say  this  because  God  would  certainly  not 


VIRGINIA'S  LETTERS  235 

send  children  into  the  world  unless  it  was  right  for  them 
to  be  born.  I  try  to  remember  what  dear  grandmamma 
said  when  somebody  condoled  with  her  at  the  time 
she  was  expecting  her  tenth  child  —  that  she  hoped  she 
was  too  good  a  Christian  to  dictate  to  the  Lord  as  to 
how  many  souls  He  should  send  into  the  world.  As  for 
me,  I  should  be  perfectly  delighted  —  it  will  be  so  much 
better  for  baby  to  have  a  little  brother  or  sister  to  play 
with  when  she  gets  bigger  —  but  I  can't  help  worrying 
about  Oliver's  peculiar  attitude  of  mind.  I  am  sure 
that  father  wouldn't  have  felt  that  way,  and  think 
how  poor  he  has  always  been.  Perhaps  it  comes  from 
dear  Oliver  having  lived  abroad  so  much  and  away  from 
the  Christian  influences,  which  have  been  one  of  the 
greatest  blessings  of  my  life.  I  have  put  off  telling 
him  every  day  just  because  I  dread  to  think  of  the  blow 
it  will  be  to  him.  He  is  the  dearest  and  best  husband 
that  ever  lived,  and  I  worship  the  ground  he  walks  on, 
but,  do  you  know,  things  are  always  a  surprise  to  him 
when  they  happen?  He  never  looks  ahead  a  single 
minute.  I  am  sometimes  afraid  that  he  isn't  the  least 
bit  practical,  and  it  makes  him  impatient  when  I  talk 
to  him  about  trying  to  cut  down  expenses.  Of  course, 
I  have  to  save  as  much  as  I  can  and  I  count  every 
single  penny,  or  we'd  never  have  enough  money  to  get 
through  the  month.  I  never  buy  a  stitch  for  either 
the  baby  or  myself,  though  Oliver  complains  now  and 
then  that  I  don't  dress  as  well  as  I  used  to  do.  But 
how  can  I  when  I've  worn  the  same  things  ever  since 
my  marriage,  besides  making  the  baby's  clothes  out 
of  my  old  ones?  You  can  understand  from  this  how 
grateful  I  am  for  the  check  you  sent  —  but,  dearest 
mother,  I  know  that  you  oughtn't  to  have  done  it,  and 


236  VIRGINIA 

that   you  sacrificed  your  own  comfort  and  father's  to 
give  it  to  me. 

I  wish  Oliver  could  get  something  to  do  in  Din- 
widdie.  He  will  never  be  happy  here,  and  we  could 
live  on  so  much  less  money  at  home  —  in  a  little  house 
near  the  rectory. 

Your  loving  child, 

VIRGINIA. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   RETURN 

ON  A  February  morning  five  years  later,  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  who  was  returning  from  her  daily  trip  to  the 
market,  met  Susan  Treadwell  at  the  corner  of  Old 
Street. 

"You  are  coming  up  to  welcome  Jinny,  aren't  you, 
Susan?  "  she  asked.  "The  train  gets  in  at  four  o'clock." 

"Why,  of  course.  I  couldn't  sleep  a  wink  until  I'd 
seen  her.  It  has  been  seven  years,  and  it  seems  a  per 
fect  eternity." 

"She  hasn't  changed  much  —  at  least  she  hadn't 
six  months  ago  when  I  was  out  there  at  the  birth  of  her 
last  baby.  The  little  thing  lived  only  two  hours,  you 
know,  and  I  thought  at  first  his  death  would  kill  her." 

"It  was  a  great  blow  —  but  she  has  been  fortunate 
never  to  have  had  a  day's  sickness  with  the  other  three. 
I  am  dying  to  see  them  —  especially  the  eldest. 
That's  your  namesake,  isn't  it?" 

"Yes,  that's  Lucy.  She's  six  years  old  now,  and 
as  good  as  an  angel,  but  she  hasn't  fulfilled  her  promise 
of  beauty.  Virginia  says  she  was  the  prettiest  baby 
she  ever  saw." 

"Everybody  says  that  Jenny,  the  youngest,  is  a 
perfect  beauty." 

"That's  why  her  father  makes  so  much  of  her,  I 
reckon.  I  told  him  when  I  was  out  there  that  he 

237 


238  VIRGINIA 

oughtn't  to  show  such  a  difference  between  them.  Do 
you  know,  Susan,  I  wouldn't  say  it  to  anybody  else, 
but  I  don't  believe  Oliver  has  a  real  fondness  for  chil 
dren.  He  gets  tired  of  having  them  always  about,  and 
that  makes  him  impatient.  Now,  Virginia  is  a  born 
mother,  just  like  her  grandmother  and  all  the  women 
of  our  family." 

"I  should  think  Oliver  would  be  crazy  about  the 
boy.  He  was  named  after  his  father,  too." 

"Virginia  felt  she  ought  to  name  him  Henry,  but 
we  call  him  Harry.  No,  Oliver  hardly  ever  takes  any 
notice  of  him.  I  don't  mean,  of  course,  that  he  isn't 
nice  and  kind  to  them  —  but  he  isn't  wrapped  up  in 
them  heart  and  soul  as  Virginia  is.  I  really  believe  he 
is  more  absorbed  in  this  play  he  has  written  than  he  is 
in  the  children." 

"I  am  so  glad  to  hear  that  two  of  his  plays  are  going 
to  be  staged.  That's  splendid,  isn't  it?" 

"He  is  coming  back  to  Dinwiddie  because  of  it. 
Now  that  he  is  assured  of  recognition,  he  says  he  is 
going  to  devote  all  his  time  to  writing.  Poor  fellow, 
he  did  so  hate  the  work  out  at  Matoaca  City,  though 
I  must  say  he  was  very  faithful  and  persevering  about 
it." 

"You've  taken  that  little  house  in  Prince  Street  for 
them,  where  old  Miss  Franklin  used  to  live,  haven't 
you?  The  last  time  I  saw  you,  you  hadn't  quite  de 
cided  about  it." 

"I  couldn't  resist  it  because  it  is  only  three  squares 
from  the  rectory.  Mr.  Pendleton  set  his  heart  on  it 
from  the  first  minute." 

"Well,  I'm  so  glad,"  said  Susan,  shifting  the  small 
basket  of  fruit  she  carried  from  one  arm  to  the  other, 


THE  RETURN  239 

"and  I'll  certainly  run  in  and  see  them  this  evening — 
I  suppose  they'll  be  at  the  rectory  for  supper?  " 

"Why,  no.  Jinny  said  she  couldn't  bear  to  be  away 
from  the  children  the  first  night,  so  we  are  all  going 
there.  I  shall  send  Docia  over  to  cook  supper  before 
they  get  here,  and  I've  just  been  to  market  to  see  if  I 
could  find  anything  that  Oliver  would  particularly  like. 
He  used  to  be  so  fond  of  sweetbreads." 

"Mr.  Dewlap  has  some  very  nice  ones.  I  got  one 
for  mother.  She  hasn't  been  well  for  the  last  few 
days." 

"I'm  sorry  to  hear  that.  Give  her  my  love  and  tell 
her  I'll  come  down  just  as  soon  as  I  get  Jinny  settled. 
I've  been  so  taken  up  getting  the  house  ready  that  I 
haven't  thought  of  another  thing  for  three  weeks." 

"When  will  Oliver's  play  be  put  on  in  New  York?" 
asked  Susan,  turning  back  after  they  had  parted. 

"In  three  weeks.  He  is  going  back  again  for  the  last 
rehearsals.  I  wish  Jinny  could  go  with  him,  but  I  don't 
believe  she  would  spend  a  night  away  from  the  children 
for  anything  on  earth." 

"Isn't  it  beautiful  that  her  marriage  has  turned  out 
so  well?" 

"Yes,  I  don't  believe  she  could  be  any  happier  if  she 
tried,  and  I  must  say  that  Oliver  makes  a  much  better 
husband  than  I  ever  thought  he  would.  I  never  heard 
them  disagree  the  whole  time  I  was  there.  Of  course, 
Jinny  gives  up  to  him  in  everything  except  where  the 
children  are  concerned,  but,  then,  a  woman  always 
expects  to  do  that.  One  thing  I'm  certain  of  —  he 
couldn't  have  found  a  better  wife  if  he'd  searched  the 
world  over.  She  never  thinks  of  herself  a  minute,  and 
you  know  how  fond  she  used  to  be  of  pretty  clothes  and 


240  VIRGINIA 

of  fixing  herself  up.  Now,  she  simply  lives  in  Oliver 
and  the  children,  and  she  is  the  proudest  thing  of  his 
plays!  The  rector  says  that  she  thinks  he  is  Shake 
speare  and  Milton  rolled  into  one." 

"Nothing  could  be  nicer,"  said  Susan,  "and  it  is  all 
such  a  happy  surprise  to  me.  Of  course,  I  always 
thought  Oliver  very  attractive  —  everybody  does  — 
but  he  seemed  to  me  to  be  selfish  and  undisciplined,  and 
I  wasn't  at  all  sure  that  Jinny  was  the  kind  of  woman 
to  bring  out  the  best  in  him." 

"You'll  think  so  when  you  see  them  together." 

Then  they  smiled  and  parted,  Mrs.  Pendleton  hurry 
ing  back  to  the  little  house,  while  Susan  turned  down 
Old  Street,  in  the  direction  of  her  home.  She  walked 
rapidly,  with  an  easy  swinging  pace  seldom  seen  in  the 
women  of  Dinwiddie,  and  not  heartily  approved  by  the 
men.  At  twenty-seven  she  was  far  handsomer  than 
she  had  been  at  twenty,  for  her  figure  had  grown  more 
shapely  and  her  face  had  lost  the  look  of  intense  pre 
occupation  which  had  once  marred  its  charm.  Strong, 
capable,  conquering,  she  still  appeared;  but  in  some 
subtle  way  she  had  grown  softer.  Mrs.  Pendleton 
would  probably  have  said  that  she  had  "settled." 

At  the  first  corner  she  met  John  Henry  on  his  way  to 
the  bank,  and  turning,  he  walked  with  her  to  the  end  of 
the  block,  where  they  stood  a  moment  discussing 
Virginia's  return. 

"I've  just  been  to  attend  to  some  bills,"  he  explained; 
"that's  why  I'm  out  at  this  hour.  You  never  come 
into  the  bank  now,  I  notice." 

"Not  often.  Are  you  going  to  see  Jinny  this  even 
ing?" 

"If  you'll  let  me  bring  you  home.     I  can't  imagine 


THE  RETURN  241 

Virginia  with  three  children,  can  you?  I'm  half  afraid 
to  see  her  again." 

"You  mean  you  think  she  may  have  changed? 
Mrs.  Pendleton  says  not." 

"Oh,  that's  Aunt  Lucy  all  over.  If  Virginia  had 
got  as  fat  as  Miss  Priscilla,  she'd  still  believe  she  hadn't 
altered  a  particle." 

"Well,  she  isn't  fat,  anyway.  She  weighs  less  than 
she  ever  did." 

Her  serious  eyes  dwelt  on  him  under  the  green  sun 
shade  she  held,  and  it  is  possible  that  she  wondered 
vaguely  what  it  was  about  John  Henry  that  had  made 
her  love  him  unsought  ever  since  she  could  remember. 
He  was  certainly  not  handsome  —  though  he  was  less 
stout  and  much  better  looking  than  he  used  to  be:  he 
was  not  particularly  clever,  even  if  he  was  successful 
with  the  work  Cyrus  had  given  him.  She  was  under 
no  delusion  concerning  him  ( being  a  remarkably  clear 
sighted  young  person),  yet  she  knew  that  taking  him 
just  as  he  was,  large,  slow,  kind,  good,  he  aroused  in 
her  a  tenderness  that  was  almost  ridiculous.  She  had 
waited  patiently  seven  years  for  him  to  discover  that 
he  cared  .for  her  —  a  fact  which  had  been  perfectly 
evident  to  her  long  before  his  duller  wit  had  perceived 
it. 

"Do  you  want  to  be  there  to  welcome  Jinny?"  he 
asked. 

"I'd  thought  I'd  go  up  about  five,  so  I  could  get  a 
glimpse  of  the  children  before  they  are  put  to  bed." 

"Then  I'll  meet  you  there  and  bring  you  home.  I 
wouldn't  take  anything  for  meeting  you,  Susan. 
There's  something  about  you  that  always  cheers  me." 

She  met  his  eyes  frankly.     "Well,  I'm  glad  of  that," 


242  VIRGINIA 

she  replied  in  her  confident  way,  and  held  out  her 
hand  through  the  handle  of  the  basket.  An  instant 
later,  when  she  passed  on  into  Bolingbroke  Street, 
there  was  a  smile  on  her  face  which  made  it  almost 
pretty. 

The  front  door  was  open,  and  as  she  entered  the 
house  her  mother  came  groping  toward  her  out  of  the 
close-smelling  dusk  of  the  hall. 

"I  thought  you'd  never  get  back,  Susan.  I've  had 
such  a  funny  feeling." 

"What  kind  of  feeling,  mother?  It  must  be  just 
nervousness.  Here  are  some  beautiful  grapes  I've 
brought  you." 

"I  wish  you  wouldn't  leave  me  alone.  I  don't  like 
to  be  left  alone." 

"Well,  I  don't  leave  you  any  more  than  I'm  obliged 
to,  but  if  I  stay  shut  up  here  I  feel  as  if  I'd  smother. 
I've  asked  Miss  Willy  to  come  and  sit  with  you  this 
evening  while  I  run  up  to  welcome  Virginia." 

"Is  she  coming  back?  Nobody  told  me.  Nobody 
tells  me  anything." 

"But  I  did  tell  you.  Why,  we've  been  talking  about 
it  for  weeks.  You  must  have  forgotten." 

"I  shouldn't  have  forgotten  it.  I'm  sure  I  shouldn't 
have  forgotten  it  if  you  had  told  me.  But  you  keep 
everything  from  me.  You  are  just  like  your  father. 
You  and  James  are  both  just  like  your  father."  Her 
voice  had  grown  peevish,  and  an  expression  of  fury 
distorted  her  usually  passive  features. 

"Why,  mother,  what  in  the  world  is  the  matter?" 
asked  Susan,  startled  by  her  manner.  "Come  up 
stairs  and  lie  down.  I  don't  believe  you  are  well. 
You  didn't  eat  a  morsel  of  breakfast,  so  I'm  going  to 


THE  RETURN  243 

fix  you  a  nice  little  lunch.  I  got  you  a  beautiful 
sweetbread  from  Mr.  Dewlap." 

Putting  her  arm  about  her,  she  led  her  up  the  long 
flight  of  steps  to  her  room,  where  Mrs.  Treadwell, 
pacified  by  the  attention,  began  immediately  to  doze 
on  the  chintz-covered  couch  by  the  window. 

"I  don't  see  what  on  earth  ever  made  me  marry 
your  father,  Susan,"  she  said,  starting  up  half  an  hour 
later,  when  her  daughter  appeared  with  the  tray. 
"Everybody  knew  the  Treadwells  couldn't  hold  a 
candle  to  my  family." 

"I  wouldn't  worry  about  that  now,  mother,"  replied 
Susan  briskly,  while  she  placed  the  tray  on  a  little 
table  at  the  head  of  the  couch.  "Sit  up  and  eat 
these  oysters." 

"I'm  obliged  to  worry  over  it,"  returned  Mrs. 
Treadwell  irritably,  while  she  watched  her  daughter 
arrange  her  plate  and  pour  out  the  green  tea  from  the 
little  Rebecca-at-the-well  teapot.  "I  don't  see  what 
got  into  my  head  and  made  me  do  it.  Why,  his  branch 
of  the  Treadwells  had  petered  out  until  they  were  as 
common  as  dirt." 

"Well,  it's  too  late  to  mend  matters,  so  we'd  better 
turn  in  and  try  to  make  the  best  of  them."  She  held 
out  an  oyster  on  the  end  of  a  fork,  and  her  mother 
received  and  ate  it  obediently. 

"If  I  could  only  once  understand  why  I  did  it,  I 
think  I  could  rest  easier,  Susan." 

"Perhaps  you  were  in  love  with  each  other.  I've 
heard  of  such  a  thing." 

"Well,  if  I  was  going  to  fall  in  love,  I  reckon  I  could 
have  found  somebody  better  to  fall  in  love  with,'' 
retorted  Mrs.  Treadwell  with  the  same  strange  excite- 


244  VIRGINIA 

ment  in  her  manner.     Then  she  took  up  her  knife  and 
fork  and  began  to  eat  her  luncheon  with  relish. 

At  five  o'clock  that  afternoon,  when  Susan  reached 
the  house  in  Prince  Street,  Virginia,  with  her  youngest 
child  in  her  arms,  was  just  stepping  out  of  a  dilapidated 
"hack,"  from  which  a  grinning  negro  driver  handed  a 
collection  of  lunch  baskets  into  the  eager  hands  of 
the  rector  and  Mrs.  Pendleton,  who  stood  on  the 
pavement. 

"Here's  Susan!"  called  Mrs.  Pendleton  in  her 
cheerful  voice,  rather  as  if  she  feared  her  daughter 
would  overlook  her  friend  in  the  excitement  of  home 
coming. 

"Oh,  you  darling  Susan!"  exclaimed  Virginia,  kissing 
her  over  the  head  of  a  sleeping  child  in  her  arms. 
"This  is  Jenny  — poor  little  thing,  she  hasn't  been 
able  to  keep  her  eyes  open.  Don't  you  think  she  is  the 
living  image  of  our  Saint  Memin  portrait  of  great- 
grandmamma?  " 

"She's  a  cherub,"  said  Susan.  "Let  me  look  at  you 
first,  Jinny.  I  want  to  see  if  you've  changed." 

"Well,  you  can't  expect  me  to  look  exactly  as  I  did 
before  I  had  four  babies!"  returned  Virginia  with  a 
happy  laugh.  She  was  thinner,  and  there  were  dark 
circles  of  fatigue  from  the  long  journey  under  her  eyes, 
but  the  Madonna-like  possibilities  in  her  face  were 
fulfilled,  and  it  seemed  to  Susan  that  she  was,  if  any 
thing,  lovelier  than  before.  The  loss  of  her  girlish 
bloom  was  forgotten  in  the  expression  of  love  and  good 
ness  which  irradiated  her  features.  She  wore  a  black 
cloth  skirt,  and  a  blouse  of  some  ugly  blue  figured  silk 
finished  at  the  neck  with  the  lace  scarf  Susan  had  sent 
her  at  Christmas.  Her  hat  was  a  characterless  black 


THE  RETURN  245 

straw  trimmed  with  a  bunch  of  yellow  daisies;  and  by 
its  shape  alone,  Susan  discerned  that  Viriginia  had  ceased 
to  consider  whether  or  not  her  clothes  were  becoming. 
But  she  shone  with  an  air  of  calm  and  radiant  happi 
ness  in  which  all  trivial  details  were  transfigured  as  by  a 
flood  of  light. 

"This  is  Lucy.  She  is  six  years  old,  and  to  think 
that  she  has  never  seen  her  dear  Aunt  Susan,"  said 
Virginia,  while  she  pulled  forward  the  little  girl  who  was 
shyly  clinging  to  her  skirt.  "And  the  other  is  Harry. 
Marthy,  bring  Harry  here  and  let  him  speak  to  Miss 
Susan.  He  is  nearly  four,  and  so  big  for  his  age. 
Where  is  Harry,  Marthy?" 

"He's  gone  into  the  yard,  ma'am,  I  couldn't  keep 
him  back,"  said  Marthy.  "As  soon  as  he  caught 
sight  of  that  pile  of  bricks  he  wanted  to  begin  build 
ing." 

"Well,  we'll  go,  too,"  replied  Virginia.  "That  child 
is  simply  crazy  about  building.  Has  Oliver  paid  the 
driver,  mother?  And  what  has  become  of  him? 
Susan,  have  you  spoken  to  Oliver?" 

No,  Susan  hadn't,  but  as  they  turned,  he  appeared 
on  the  porch  and  came  eagerly  forward.  Her  first 
impression  was  that  he  had  grown  handsomer  than  she 
had  ever  believed  possible;  and  the  next  minute  she 
asked  herself  how  in  the  world  he  had  managed  to 
exercise  his  vitality  in  Matoaca  City.  He  was  one  of 
those  men,  she  saw,  in  whom  the  spirit  of  youth  burned 
like  a  flame.  Every  year  would  pass  as  a  blessing,  not 
as  a  curse,  to  him,  and  already,  because  of  her  intenser 
emotions  and  her  narrower  interests,  Virginia  was 
beginning  to  look  older  than  he.  There  was  a  dif 
ference,  too,  in  their  dress,  for  he  had  the  carefully 


246  VIRGINIA 

groomed  and  well-brushed  appearance  so  rare  in  Din- 
widdie,  while  Virginia's  clothes  might  have  been  worn, 
with  equal  propriety,  by  Miss  Priscilla  Batte.  She 
was  still  lovely,  but  it  was  a  loveliness,  Susan  felt  with 
a  pang,  that  would  break  early. 

"Why,  there's  Susan!"  exclaimed  Oliver,  coming 
toward  her  with  an  eager  pleasure  in  his  face  which 
made  it  more  boyish  than  ever.  "Well,  well,  it's 
good  to  see  you,  Susan.  Are  you  the  same  old  dear 
I  left  behind  me?" 

"The  same,"  said  Susan  laughing.  "And  so  glad 
about  your  plays,  Oliver,  so  perfectly  delighted." 

"By  Jove,  you're  the  first  person  to  speak  of  them," 
he  replied.  "Nobody  else  seems  to  think  a  play  is 
worth  mentioning  as  long  as  a  baby  is  in  sight.  That's 
a  delusion  of  Virginia's,  too.  I  wish  you'd  convince 
her,  Susan,  that  a  man  is  of  some  use  except  as  a  hus 
band  and  a  father." 

"But  they  are  such  nice  babies,  Oliver." 

"Oh,  nice  enough  as  babies  go.  The  boy's  a  trump. 
He'd  be  a  man  already  if  his  mother  would  let  him. 
But  babies  ought  to  have  their  season  like  everything 
else  under  the  sun.  For  God's  sake,  Susan,  talk  to  me 
about  something  else!"  he  added  in  mock  despair. 

Virginia  was  already  in  the  house,  and  when  Oliver 
and  Susan  joined  her,  they  found  Mrs.  Pendleton  try 
ing  to  persuade  her  to  let  Marthy  carry  the  sleeping 
Jenny  up  to  the  nursery. 

"Give  me  that  child,  Jinny,"  said  Oliver,  a  trifle 
sharply.  "You  know  the  doctor  told  you  not  to  carry 
her  upstairs." 

"But  I'm  sure  it  won't  hurt  me,"  she  responded, 
with  an  angelic  sweetness  of  voice.  "It  will  wake  her 


THE  RETURN  247 

to  be  changed,  and  the  poor  little  thing  has  had  such 
a  trying  day." 

"Well,  you  aren't  going  to  carry  her,  if  she  wakes 
twenty  times,"  retorted  Oliver.  "Here,  Marthy,  if 
she  thinks  I'd  drop  her,  suppose  you  try  it." 

"Why,  bless  you,  sir,  I  can  take  her  so  she  won't 
know  it,"  returned  Marthy  reassuringly,  and  coming 
forward,  she  proved  her  ability  by  sliding  the  uncon 
scious  child  from  Virginia's  arms  into  her  own. 

"Where  is  Harry?"  asked  Mrs.  Pendleton  anxiously. 
"Nobody  has  seen  Harry  since  we  got  here." 

"I  is,  ma'am,"  replied  the  cheerful  Marthy  over  her 
shoulder,  as  she  toiled  up  the  stairs*  with  Virginia 
and  little  Lucy  noiselessly  following.  "I've  undressed 
him  and  I  was  obliged  to  hide  his  clothes  to  keep  him 
from  putting  'em  on  again.  He's  near  daft  with  ex 
citement." 

"Perhaps  I'd  better  go  up  and  help  get  them  to  bed," 
said  Mrs.  Pendleton,  turning  from  the  rector  to  Oliver. 
"I'm  afraid  Jinny  will  be  too  tired  to  enjoy  her  sup 
per.  Harry  is  in  such  a  gale  of  spirits  I  can  hear  him 
talking." 

"You  might  as  well,  my  dear,"  rejoined  the  rector 
mildly,  as  he  stooped  over  to  replace  one  of  the  baby's 
bottles  in  the  basket  from  which  it  had  slipped.  "Don't 
you  think  we  might  get  some  of  these  things  out  of  the 
way?"  he  added.  "If  you  take  that  alcohol  stove, 
Oliver,  I'll  follow  with  these  caps  and  shawls." 

"Certainly,  sir,"  rejoined  Oliver  readily.  He  always 
addressed  the  rector  as  "sir,"  partly  because  it  seemed 
to  him  to  be  appropriate,  partly  because  he  knew  that 
the  older  man  expected  him  to  do  so.  It  was  one  of 
Oliver's  most  engaging  characteristics  that  he  usually 


248  VIRGINIA 

adapted  himself  with  perfect  ease  to  whatever  life  or 
other  people  expected  of  him. 

While  they  were  carrying  the  baskets  into  the  pas 
sage  at  the  back  of  the  dining-room,  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
whose  nervous  longing  had  got  at  last  beyond  her  con 
trol,  deserted  Susan,  with  an  apology,  and  flitted  up  the 
stairs. 

"Come  up  and  tell  Jinny  good-night  before  you  go, 
dear,"  she  added;  "I'm  afraid  she  will  not  get  down 
again  to  see  you." 

"Oh,  don't  worry  about  me,"  replied  Susan.  "I 
want  to  say  a  few  words  to  Oliver,  and  then  I'm  coming 
up  to  see  Harry.  Harry  appears  to  me  to  be  a  man  of 
personality." 

"He's  a  darling  child,"  replied  Mrs.  Pendleton,  a 
little  vaguely,  "and  Jinny  says  she  never  saw  him  so 
headstrong  before.  He  is  usually  as  good  as  gold." 

"Well,  well,  it's  a  fine  family,"  said  the  rector,  beam 
ing  upon  his  son-in-law,  when  they  returned  from  the 
passage.  .  "I  never  saw  three  healthier  children.  It's 
a  pity  you  lost  the  other  one,"  he  added  in  a  graver 
tone,  "but  as  he  lived  such  a  short  time,  Virginia 
couldn't  take  it  so  much  to  heart  as  if  he  had  been  older. 
She  seems  to  have  got  over  the  disappointment." 

"Yes,  I  think  she's  got  over  it,"  said  Oliver. 

"It  will  be  good  for  her  to  be  back  in  Dinwiddie.  I 
never  felt  satisfied  to  think  of  her  so  far  away." 

"Yes,  I'm  glad  we  could  come  back,"  agreed  Oliver 
pleasantly,  though  he  appeared  to  Susan's  quick  eye 
to  be  making  an  effort. 

"By  the  way,  I  haven't  spoken  of  your  literary  work," 
remarked  the  rector,  with  the  manner  of  a  man  who  is 
saying  something  very  agreeable.  "I  have  never  been 


THE  RETURN  249 

to  the  theatre,  but  I  understand  that  it  is  losing  a  great 
deal  of  its  ill  odour.  I  always  remember  when  any 
thing  is  said  about  the  stage  that,  after  all,  Shake 
speare  was  an  actor.  We  may  be  old-fashioned  in 
Dinwiddie,"  he  pursued  in  the  complacent  tone  in 
which  the  admission  of  this  failing  is  invariably  made, 
"but  I  don't  think  we  can  have  any  objection  to  sweet, 
clean  plays,  with  an  elevating  moral  tone  to  them 
They  are  no  worse,  anyway,  than  novels." 

Though  Oliver  kept  his  face  under  such  admirable 
control,  Susan,  glancing  at  him  quickly,  saw  a  shade  of 
expression,  too  fine  for  amusement,  too  cordial  for 
resentment,  pass  over  his  features.  His  colour,  which 
was  always  high,  deepened,  and  raising  his  head,  he 
brushed  the  smooth  dark  hair  back  from  his  forehead. 
Through  some  intuitive  strain  of  sympathy,  Susan 
understood,  while  she  watched  him,  that  his  plays  were 
as  vital  a  matter  in  his  life  as  the  children  were  in 
Virginia's. 

"I  must  run  up  and  see  Harry  before  he  goes  to 
sleep,"  she  said,  feeling  instinctively  that  the  conver 
sation  was  becoming  a  strain. 

At  the  allusion  to  his  grandson,  the  rector's  face  lost 
immediately  its  expression  of  forced  pleasantness  and 
relapsed  into  its  look  of  genial  charm. 

"You  ought  to  be  proud  of  that  boy,  Oliver,"  he 
observed,  beaming.  "There's  the  making  of  a  fine 
man  in  him,  but  you  mustn't  let  Jinny  spoil  him.  It 
took  all  my  strength  and  authority  to  keep  Lucy  from 
ruining  Jinny,  and  I've  always  said  that  my  brother- 
in-law  Tom  Bland  would  have  been  a  first-rate  fellow 
if  it  hadn't  been  for  the  way  his  mother  raised  him. 
God  knows,  I  like  a  woman  to  be  wrapped  up  heart  and 


250  VIRGINIA 

soul  in  her  household  —  and  I  don't  suppose  anybody 
ever  accused  the  true  Southern  lady  of  lacking  in  do 
mesticity  —  but  if  they  have  a  failing,  which  I  refuse 
to  admit,  it  is  that  they  are  almost  too  soft-hearted 
where  their  children  —  especially  their  sons  —  are 
concerned." 

"I  used  to  tell  Virginia  that  she  gave  in  to  Harry 
too  much  when  he  was  a  baby,"  said  Oliver,  who  was 
evidently  not  without  convictions  regarding  the  rearing 
of  his  offspring;  "but  she  hasn't  been  nearly  so  bad 
about  it  since  Jenny  came.  Jenny  is  the  one  I'm  anx 
ious  about  now.  She  is  a  headstrong  little  beggar 
and  she  has  learned  already  how  to  get  around  her 
mother  when  she  wants  anything.  It's  been  worse, 
too,"  he  added,  "since  we  lost  the  last  poor  little  chap. 
Ever  since  then  Virginia  has  been  in  mortal  terror  for 
fear  something  would  happen  to  the  others." 

"It  was  hard  on  her,"  said  the  rector.  "We  men 
can't  understand  how  women  feel  about  a  thing  like 
that,  though,"  he  added  gently.  "I  remember  when  we 
lost  our  babies  —  you  know  we  had  three  before  Vir 
ginia  came,  but  none  of  them  lived  more  than  a  few 
hours  —  that  I  thought  Lucy  would  die  of  grief  and 
disappointment.  You  see  they  have  all  the  burden 
and  the  anxiety  of  it,  and  I  sometimes  think  that  a 
child  begins  to  live  for  a  woman  a  long  time  before  a 
man  ever  thinks  of  it  as  a  human  being." 

"I  suppose  you're  right,"  returned  Oliver  in  the 
softened  tone  which  proved  to  Susan  that  he  was 
emotionally  stirred.  "I  tried  to  be  as  sympathetic 
with  Virginia  as  I  could,  but  —  do  you  know?  —  I 
stopped  to  ask  myself  sometimes  if  I  could  really 
understand.  It  seemed  to  her  ,50  strange  that  I  wasn't 


THE  RETURN  251 

knocked  all  to  pieces  by  the  thing  —  that  I  could  go 
on  writing  as  if  nothing  had  happened." 

"I  am  not  sure  that  it  isn't  beyond  the  imagination 
of  a  man  to  enter  into  a  woman's  most  sacred  feeling," 
remarked  the  rector,  with  a  touch  of  the  sentimentality 
in  which  he  religiously  shrouded  the  feminine  sex.  So 
ineradicable,  indeed,  was  his  belief  in  the  inherent 
virtue  of  every  woman,  that  he  had  several  times  fallen 
a  helpless  victim  in  the  financial  traps  of  conscienceless 
Delilahs.  But  since  his  innocence  was  as  tempera 
mental  a  quality  as  was  Virginia's  maternal  passion, 
experience  had  taught  him  nothing,  and  the  fact  that 
he  had  been  deceived  in  the  past  threw  no  shadow  of 
safeguard  around  his  steps  in  the  present.  This  endear 
ing  trait,  which  made  him  so  successful  as  a  husband, 
was  probably  the  cause  of  his  unmitigated  failure  as  a 
reformer.  In  looking  at  a  woman,  it  was  impossible 
for  him  to  see  anything  except  perfection. 

When  Susan  reached  the  top  of  the  staircase,  Mrs. 
Pendleton  called  to  her,  through  the  half  open  door  of 
the  nursery,  to  come  in  and  hear  how  beautifully  Lucy 
was  saying  her  prayers.  Her  voice  was  full  of  a  sup 
pressed  excitement;  there  was  a  soft  pink  flush  in  her 
cheeks;  and  it  seemed  to  Susan  that  the  presence  of  her 
grandchildren  had  made  her  almost  a  girl  again.  She 
sat  on  the  edge  of  a  trundle-bed  slipping  a  nightgown 
over  the  plump  shoulders  of  little  Lucy,  who  held  her 
self  very  still  and  prim,  for  she  was  a  serious  child, 
with  a  natural  taste  for  propriety.  Her  small  plain 
face,  with  its  prominent  features  and  pale  blue  eyes, 
had  a  look  of  intense  earnestness  and  concentration, 
as  though  the  business  of  getting  to  bed  absorbed 
all  her  energies;  and  the  only  movement  she  made 


252  VIRGINIA 

was  to  toss  back  the  slender  and  very  tight  braid  of 
brown  hair  from  her  shoulders.  She  said  her  prayer 
as  if  it  were  the  multiplication  table,  and  having 
finished,  slid  gently  into  bed,  and  held  up  her  face  to 
be  kissed. 

"Jenny  wouldn't  drink  but  half  of  her  bottle,  Miss 
Virginia,"  said  Marthy,  appearing  suddenly  on  the 
threshold  of  Virginia's  bedroom,  for  the  youngest  child 
slept  in  the  room  with  her  mother.  "She  dropped  off 
to  sleep  so  sound  that  I  couldn't  wake  her." 

"I  hope  she  isn't  sick,  Marthy,"  responded  Virginia 
in  an  anxious  tone.  "Did  she  seem  at  all  feverish?" 

"Naw'm,  she  ain't  feverish,  she's  jest  sleepy  headed." 

"Well,  I'll  come  and  look  at  her  as  soon  as  I  can  per 
suade  Harry  to  finish  his  prayers.  He  stopped  in  the 
middle  of  them,  and  he  refuses  to  bless  anybody  but 
himself." 

She  spoke  gravely,  gazing  with  her  exhaustless  pa 
tience  over  the  impish  yellow  head  of  Harry,  who  knelt, 
in  his  little  nightgown,  on  the  rug  at  her  feet.  His 
roving  blue  eyes  met  Susan's  as  she  came  over  to  him, 
while  his  chubby  face  broke  into  a  delicious  smile. 

"Don't  notice  him,  Susan,"  said  Virginia,  in  her 
lovely  voice  which  was  as  full  of  tenderness  and  as 
lacking  in  humour  as  her  mother's.  "Harry,  you 
shan't  speak  to  Aunt  Susan  until  you've  been  good  and 
finished  your  prayers." 

"Don't  want  to  speak  to  Aunt  Susan,"  retorted  the 
monster  of  infant  depravity,  slipping  his  bare  toes 
through  a  rent  in  the  rug,  and  doubling  up  with  delight 
at  his  insubordination. 

"I  never  knew  him  to  behave  like  this  before,"  said 
Virginia,  almost  in  tears  from  shame  and  weariness. 


THE  RETURN  253 

"It  must  be  the  excitement  of  getting  here.  He  is 
usually  so  good.  Now,  Harry,  begin  all  over  again. 
'God  bless  dear  papa,  God  bless  dear  mamma,  God 
bless  dear  grandmamma,  God  bless  dear  grandpapa, 
God  bless  dear  Lucy,  God  bless  dear  Jenny,  God  bless 
all  our  dear  friends." 

"God  bless  dear  Harry,"  recited  the  monster. 

"He  has  gone  on  like  that  ever  since  I  started,"  said 
poor  Virginia.  "I  don't  know  what  to  do  about  it. 
It  seems  dreadful  to  let  him  go  to  bed  without  saying 
his  prayers  properly.  Now,  Harry,  please,  please  be 
good;  poor  mother  is  so  tired,  and  she  wants  to  go  and 
kiss  little  Jenny  good-night.  'God  bless  dear  papa,' 
and  I'll  let  you  get  in  bed." 

"God  bless  Harry,"  was  the  imperturbable  rejoinder 
to  this  pleading. 

"Don't  you  want  your  poor  mother  to  have  some 
supper,  Harry?"  inquired  Susan  severely. 

"Harry  wants  supper,"  answered  the  innocent. 

"I  suppose  I'll  have  to  let  him  go,"  said  Virginia, 
distractedly,  "but  Oliver  will  be  horrified.  He  says 
I  don't  reason  with  them  enough.  Harry,"  she  con 
cluded  sternly,  "don't  you  understand  that  it  is 
naughty  of  you  to  behave  this  way  and  keep  mamma 
away  from  poor  little  Jenny?" 

"Bad  Jenny,"  said  Harry. 

"If  you  don't  say  your  prayers  this  minute,  you 
shan't  have  any  preserves  on  your  bread  to-morrow." 

"Bad  preserves,"  retorted  Harry. 

"Well,  if  he  won't,  I  don't  see  how  I  can  make  him," 
said  Virginia.  "Come,  then,  get  into  bed,  Harry, 
and  go  to  sleep.  You  have  been  a  bad  boy  and  hurt 
poor  mamma's  feelings  so  that  she  is  going  to  cry. 


254  VIRGINIA 

She  won't  be  able  to  eat  her  supper  for  thinking  of  the 
way  you  have  disobeyed  her." 

Jumping  into  bed  with  a  bound,  Harry  dug  his  head 
into  the  pillows,  gurgled,  and  then  sat  up  very  straight. 
"God  bless  dear  papa,  God  bless  dear  mamma,  God 
bless  dear  grandmamma,  God  bless  dear  grandpapa, 
God  bless  dear  Lucy,  God  bless  dear  Jenny,  God  bless 
our  dear  friends  everywhere,"  he  repeated  in  a  resound 
ing  voice. 

"Oh,  you  precious  lamb!"  exclaimed  Virginia.  "He 
couldn't  bear  to  hurt  poor  mamma,  could  he?"  and 
she  kissed  him  ecstatically  before  hastening  to  the 
slumbering  Jenny  in  the  adjoining  room. 

"I  like  the  little  scamp,"  said  Susan,  when  she  re 
ported  the  scene  to  John  Henry  on  the  way  home,  "but 
he  manages  his  mother  perfectly.  Already  his  sense 
of  humour  is  better  developed  than  hers." 

"I  can't  get  over  seeing  Virginia  with  children," 
observed  John  Henry,  as  if  the  fact  of  Virginia's  mother 
hood  had  just  become  evident  to  him.  "It  suits  her, 
though.  She  looked  happier  than  I  ever  saw  her  — 
and  so,  for  that  matter,  did  Aunt  Lucy." 

"It  made  me  wonder  how  Mrs.  Pendleton  had  lived 
away  from  them  for  seven  years.  Why,  you  can't 
imagine  what  she  is  —  she  doesn't  seem  to  have  any 
life  at  all  until  you  see  her  with  Virginia's  children." 

"It's  a  wonderful  thing,"  said  John  Henry  slowly, 
"and  it  taught  me  a  lot  just  to  look  at  them.  I  don't 
know  why,  but  it  seemed  to  make  me  understand  how 
much  I  care  about  you,  Susan." 

"Hadn't  you  suspected  it  before?"  asked  Susan  as 
calmly  as  he  had  spoken.  Emotionalism,  she  knew, 
she  would  never  find  in  John  Henry's  wooing,  and, 


THE  RETURN  355 

though  she  could  not  have  explained  the  reason  of  it  to 
herself,  she  liked  the  brusque  directness  of  his  court 
ship.  It  was  part  of  that  large  sincerity  of  nature 
which  had  first  attracted  her  to  him. 

"Of  course,  in  a  way  I  knew  I  cared  more  for  you 
than  for  anybody  else  —  but  I  didn't  realize  that  you 
were  more  to  me  than  Virginia  had  ever  been.  I  had 
got  so  in  the  habit  of  thinking  I  was  in  love  with  her 
that  it  came  almost  as  a  surprise  to  me  to  find  that 
it  was  over." 

"I  knew  it  long  ago,"  said  Susan. 

"Why  didn't  you  make  me  see  it?" 

"Oh,  I  waited  for  you  to  find  it  out  yourself.  I  was 
sure  that  you  would  some  day." 

"Do  you  think  you  could  ever  care  for  me,  Susan?" 

A  smile  quivered  on  Susan's  lips  as  she  looked  up  at 
him,  but  with  the  reticence  which  had  always  charac 
terized  her,  she  answered  simply: 

"I  think  I  could,  John  Henry." 

His  hand  reached  down  and  closed  over  hers,  and  in 
the  long  look  which  they  exchanged  under  the  flickering 
street  lamp,  she  felt  suddenly  that  perfect  security 
which  is  usually  the  growth  of  happy  years.  What 
ever  the  future  brought  to  them,  she  knew  that  she 
could  trust  John  Henry's  love  for  her. 

"And  we've  lost  seven  years,  dearest,"  he  said,  with 
a  catch  in  his  voice.  "We've  lost  seven  years  just  be 
cause  I  happened  to  be  born  a  fool." 

"But  we've  got  fifty  ahead  of  us,"  she  replied  with  a 
joyous  laugh. 

As  she  spoke,  her  heart  cried  out,  "Fifty  years  of 
the  thing  I  want!"  and  she  looked  up  into  the  kind, 
serious  face  of  John  Henry  as  if  it  were  the  face  of 


256  VIRGINIA 

incarnate  happiness.  A  tremendous  belief  in  life 
surged  from  her  brain  through  her  body,  which  felt 
incredibly  warm  and  young.  She  thought  exultantly 
of  herself  as  of  one  who  did  not  accept  destiny,  but 
commanded  it. 

They  walked  the  rest  of  the  way  in  silence,  but  he 
held  her  hand  pressed  closely  against  his  heart,  and 
once  or  twice  he  turned  in  the  deserted  street  and 
looked  into  her  eyes  as  if  he  found  there  all  the  words 
that  he  needed. 

"We  won't  waste  any  more  time,  will  we,  Susan?" 
he  asked  when  they  reached  the  house.  "Let's  be 
married  in  December." 

"If  mother  is  better  by  then.  She  hasn't  been  well, 
and  I  am  anxious  about  her." 

"We'll  go  to  housekeeping  at  once.  I'll  begin 
looking  about  to-morrow.  God  bless  you,  darling, 
for  what  you  are  giving  me." 

She  caressed  his  hand  gently  with  her  fingers,  and 
he  was  about  to  speak  again,  when  the  door  behind 
them  opened  and  the  head  of  Cyrus  appeared  like  that 
of  a  desolate  bird  of  prey. 

"Is  that  you,  Susan?"  he  inquired.  "Where  have 
you  been  all  this  time?  Your  mother  was  taken  ill 
more  than  an  hour  ago,  and  the  doctor  says  that  she 
has  been  paralyzed." 

Breaking  away  from  John  Henry,  Susan  ran  up  the 
steps  and  past  her  father  into  the  hall,  where  Miss 
Willy  stood  weeping. 

"I  was  all  by  myself  with  her.  There  wasn't  an 
other  living  soul  in  the  house,"  sobbed  the  little  dress 
maker.  "She  fell  over  just  like  that,  with  her  face  all 
twisted,  while  I  was  talking  to  her." 


THE  RETURN  257 

"Oh,  poor  mother,  poor  mother!"  cried  the  girl  as 
she  ran  upstairs.  "Is  she  in  her  room,  and  who  is 
with  her?" 

"The  doctor  has  been  there  for  over  an  hour,  and  he 
says  that  she'll  never  be  able  to  move  again.  Oh, 
Susan,  how  will  she  stand  it?" 

But  Susan  had  already  outstripped  her,  and  was 
entering  the  sick-room,  where  Mrs.  Treadwell  lay  un 
conscious,  with  her  distorted  face  turned  toward  the 
door,  as  though  she  were  watching  expectantly  for 
some  one  who  would  never  come.  As  the  girl  fell  on 
her  knees  beside  the  couch,  her  happiness  seemed  to 
dissolve  like  mist  before  the  grim  facts  of  mortal 
anguish  and  death.  It  was  not  until  dawn,  when  the 
night's  watch  was  over  and  she  stood  alone  beside  her 
window,  that  she  said  to  herself  with  all  the  courage 
she  could  summon: 

"And  it's  over  for  me,  too.  Everything  is  over  for 
me,  too.  Oh,  poor,  poor  mother!" 

Love,  which  had  seemed  to  her  last  night  the  supreme 
spirit  in  the  universe,  had  surrendered  its  authority  to 
the  diviner  image  of  Duty. 


CHAPTER  IV 

HER   CHILDREN 

"PooR  Aunt  Belinda  was  paralyzed  last  night, 
Oliver,"  said  Virginia  the  next  morning  at  breakfast. 
"Miss  Willy  Whitlow  just  brought  me  a  message  from 
Susan.  She  spent  the  night  there  and  was  on  her  way 
this  morning  to  ask  mother  to  go." 

Oliver  had  come  downstairs  in  one  of  his  absent- 
minded  moods,  but  by  the  time  Virginia  had  repeated 
her  news  he  was  able  to  take  it  in,  and  to  show  a  proper 
solicitude  for  his  aunt. 

"Are  you  going  there?"  he  asked.  "I  am  obliged 
to  do  a  little  work  on  my  play  while  I  have  the  idea, 
but  tell  Susan  I'll  come  immediately  after  dinner." 

"I'll  stop  to  inquire  on  my  way  back  from  market? 
but  I  won't  be  able  to  stay,  because  I've  got  all  my 
unpacking  to  do.  Can  you  take  the  children  out  this 
afternoon  so  Marthy  can  help  me?" 

"I'm  sorry,  but  I  simply  can't.  I've  got  to  get  on 
with  this  idea  while  I  have  control  of  it,  and  if  I  go  out 
with  the  children  I  shan't  be  able  to  readjust  my 
thoughts  for  twenty -fours  hours." 

"I'd  like  to  go  out  with  papa,"  said  Lucy,  who  sat 
carefully  drinking  her  cambric  tea,  so  that  she  might 
not  spill  a  drop  on  the  mahogany  table. 

"I  want  to  go  with  papa,"  remarked  Harry  obstreper 
ously,  while  he  began  to  drum  with  his  spoon  on  the 

258 


HER  CHILDREN  259 

red  tin  tray  which  protected  the  table  from  his  as 
saults. 

"Papa  can't  go  with  you,  darling,  but  if  mamma 
finishes  her  unpacking  in  time,  she'll  come  out  into  the 
park  and  play  with  you  a  little  while.  Be  careful, 
Harry,  you  are  spilling  your  milk.  Let  mamma  take 
your  spoon  out  for  you." 

Her  coffee,  which  she  had  poured  out  a  quarter  of  an 
hour  ago,  stood  untasted  and  tepid  beside  her  plate, 
but  from  long  habit  she  had  grown  to  prefer  it  in  that 
condition.  When  the  waffles  were  handed  to  her,  she 
had  absent-mindedly  helped  herself  to  one,  while  she 
watched  Harry's  reckless  efforts  to  cut  up  his  bacon, 
and  it  had  grown  sodden  before  she  remembered  that 
it  ought  to  be  buttered.  She  wore  the  black  skirt  and 
blue  blouse  in  which  she  had  travelled,  for  she  had  neg 
lected  to  unpack  her  own  clothes  in  her  eagerness  to 
get  out  the  things  that  Oliver  and  the  children  might 
need.  Her  hair  had  been  hastily  coiled  around  her 
head,  without  so  much  as  a  glance  in  the  mirror,  but 
the  expression  of  unselfish  goodness  in  her  face  lent  a 
charm  even  to  the  careless  fashion  in  which  she  had 
put  on  her  clothes.  She  was  one  of  those  women  whose 
beauty,  being  essentially  virginal,  belongs,  like  the 
blush  of  the  rose,  to  a  particular  season.  The 
delicacy  of  her  skin  invited  the  mark  of  time  or  of 
anxiety,  and  already  fine  little  lines  were  visible,  in  the 
strong  light  of  the  morning,  at  the  corners  of  her  eyes 
and  mouth.  Yet  neither  the  years  or  her  physical 
neglect  of  herself  could  destroy  the  look  of  almost 
angelic  sweetness  and  love  which  illumined  her  features. 

"Are  you  obliged  to  go  to  New  York  next  week, 
Oliver?"  she  asked,  dividing  her  attention  equally  be- 


260  VIRGINIA 

tween  him  and  Harry's  knife  and  fork.  "Can't  they 
rehearse 'The  Beaten  Road' just  as  well  without  you?" 

"No,  I  want  to  be  there.  Is  there  any  reason  why  I 
shouldn't?" 

"Of  course  not.  I  was  only  thinking  that  Harry's 
birthday  comes  on  Friday,  and  we  should  miss  you." 

"Well,  I'm  awfully  sorry,  but  he'll  have  to  grow  old 
without  me.  By  the  way,  why  can't  you  run  on  with 
me  for  the  first  night,  Virginia?  Your  mother  can 
look  after  the  babies  for  a  couple  of  days,  can't  she?" 

But  the  absent-minded  look  of  young  motherhood 
had  settled  again  on  Virginia's  face,  for  the  voice  of 
Jenny,  raised  in  exasperated  demand,  was  heard  from 
the  nursery  above. 

"I  wonder  what's  the  matter?"  she  said,  half  rising 
in  her  chair,  while  she  glanced  nervously  at  the  door. 
"She  was  so  fretful  last  night,  Oliver,  that  I'm  afraid 
she  is  going  to  be  sick.  Will  you  keep  an  eye  on  Harry 
while  I  run  up  and  see?" 

Ten  minutes  later  she  came  down  again,  and  began, 
with  a  relieved  manner,  to  stir  her  cold  coffee. 

"What  were  you  saying,  Oliver?"  she  inquired  so 
sweetly  that  his  irritation  vanished. 

"  I  was  just  asking  you  if  you  couldn't  let  your  mother 
look  after  the  youngsters  for  a  day  or  two  and  come  on 
with  me." 

"Oh,  I'd  give  anything  in  the  world  to  see  it,  but  I 
couldn't  possibly  leave  the  children.  I'd  be  so  terribly 
anxious  for  fear  something  would  happen." 

"Sometimes  I  get  in  a  blue  funk  about  that  play," 
he  said  seriously.  "I've  staked  so  much  on  it  that  I'll 
be  pretty  well  cut  up,  morally  and  financially,  if  it 
doesn't  go." 


HER  CHILDREN  261 

"But  of  course  it  will  go,  Oliver.  Anybody  could 
tell  that  just  to  read  it.  Didn't  Mr.  Martin  write  you 
that  he  thought  it  one  of  the  strongest  plays  ever 
written  in  America  —  and  I'm  sure  that  is  a  great  deal 
for  a  manager  to  say.  Nobody  could  read  a  line  of  it 
without  seeing  that  it  is  a  work  of  genius." 

For  an  instant  he  appeared  to  draw  assurance  from 
her  praise;  then  his  face  clouded,  and  he  responded 
doubtfully : 

"But  you  thought  just  as  well  of  'April  Winds,'  and 
nobody  would  look  at  that." 

"Well,  that  was  perfect  too,  of  its  kind,  but  of  course 
they  are  different." 

"I  never  thought  much  of  that,"  he  said,  "but  1 
honestly  believe  that  'The  Beaten  Road'  is  a  ^great 
play.  That's  my  judgment,  and  I'll  stand  by  it." 

"Of  course  it's  great,"  she  returned  emphatically. 
"No,  Harry,  you  can't  have  any  more  syrup  on  your 
buckwheat  cake.  You  have  eaten  more  already  than 
sister  Lucy,  and  she  is  two  years  older  than  you  are.'^ 
"Give  it  to  the  little  beggar.  It  won't  hurt  him," 
said  Oliver  impatiently,  as  Harry  began  to  protest. 

"But  he  really  oughtn't  to  have  it,  Oliver.  Well, 
then,  just  a  drop.  Oh,  Oliver,  you've  given  him  a 
great  deal  too  much.  Here,  take  mamma's  plate  and 
give  her  yours,  Harry." 

But  Harry  made  no  answer  to  her  plea,  because  he 
was  busily  eating  the  syrup  as  fast  as  he  could  under 
pressure  of  the  fear  that  he  might  lose  it  all  if  he  pro 
crastinated. 

"He'll  be  sick  before  night  and  you'll  have  yourself 
to  blame,  Oliver,"  said  Virginia  reproachfully. 

Ever  since  the  babies  had  come  she  had  assumed 


262  VIRGINIA 

naturally  that  Oliver's  interest  in  the  small  details 
of  his  children's  clothes  or  health  was  perpetually 
fresh  and  absorbing  like  her  own,  and  her  habit  of 
not  seeing  what  she  did  not  want  to  see  in  life  had  pro 
tected  her  from  the  painful  discovery  that  he  was  occa 
sionally  bored.  Once  he  had  even  tried  to  explain  to 
her  that,  although  he  loved  the  children  better  than 
either  his  plays  or  the  political  fate  of  nations,  there 
were  times  when  the  latter  questions  interested  him  con 
siderably  more;  but  the  humour  with  which  he  inad 
vertently  veiled  his  protest  had  turned  the  point  of  it 
entirely  away  from  her  comprehension.  A  deeper 
impression  was  made  upon  her  by  the  fact  that  he  had 
refused  to  stop  reading  about  the  last  Presidential 
campaign  long  enough  to  come  and  persuade  Harry 
to  swallow  a  dose  of  medicine.  She,  who  seldom 
read  a  newspaper,  and  was  innocent  of  any  desire  to 
exert  even  the  most  indirect  influence  upon  the  elec 
tions,  had  waked  in  the  night  to  ask  herself  if  it 
could  possibly  be  true  that  Oliver  loved  the  children 
less  passionately  than  she  did. 

"I've  got  to  get  to  work  now,  dear,"  he  said,  rising. 
"I  haven't  had  a  quiet  breakfast  since  Harry  first 
came  to  the  table.  Don't  you  think  Marthy  might 
feed  him  upstairs  again?" 

"Oh,  Oliver!  It  would  break  his  heart.  He  would 
think  that  he  was  in  disgrace." 

"Well,  I'm  not  sure  that  he  oughtn't  to  be.  Now, 
Lucy's  all  right.  She  behaves  like  a  lady  —  but  if  you 
consider  Harry  an  appetizing  table  companion,  I  don't." 

"But,  dearest,  he's  only  a  baby!  And  boys  are  dif 
ferent  from  girls.  You  can't  expect  them  to  have  as 
good  manners." 


HER  CHILDREN  263 

"I  can't  remember  that  I  ever  made  a  nuisance  of 
myself." 

"Your  father  was  very  strict  with  you.  But  surely 
you  don't  think  it  is  right  to  make  your  children  afraid 
of  you?" 

The  genuine  distress  in  her  voice  brought  a  laugh 
from  him. 

"Oh,  well,  they  are  your  children,  darling,  and  you 
may  do  as  you  please  with  them." 

"Bad  papa!"  said  Harry  suddenly,  chasing  the  last 
drop  of  syrup  around  his  plate  with  a  bit  of  bread 
crumb. 

"Oh,  no,  precious;  good  papa!  You  must  promise 
papa  to  be  a  little  gentleman  or  he  won't  let  you  break 
fast  with  him  any  more." 

It  was  Virginia's  proud  boast  that  Harry's  smile 
would  melt  even  his  great-uncle,  Cyrus,  and  she  watched 
him  with  breathless  rapture  as  he  turned  now  in  his 
high  chair  and  tested  the  effect  of  this  magic  charm  on 
his  father.  His  baby  mouth  broadened  deliciously, 
showing  two  rows  of  small  irregular  teeth;  his  blue 
eyes  shone  until  they  seemed  full  of  sparkles;  his 
roguish,  irresistible  face  became  an  incarnation  of 
infant  entreaty. 

"I  want  to  bekfast  wid  papa,  an'  I  want  more 
'lasses,"  he  remarked. 

"He's  a  fascinating  little  rascal,  there's  no  doubt  of 
that,"  observed  Oliver,  in  response  to  Virginia's  tri 
umphant  look.  Then,  bending  over,  he  kissed  her  on 
the  cheek,  before  he  picked  up  his  newspapers  and  went 
into  his  study  at  the  back  of  the  parlour. 

Some  hours  later,  at  their  early  dinner,  she  reported, 
the  result  of  her  visit  to  the  Treadwells, 


264  VIRGINIA 

"It  is  too  awful,  Oliver.  Aunt  Belinda  has  not 
spoken  yet,  and  she  can't  move  the  lower  part  of  her 
body  at  all.  The  doctor  says  she  may  live  for  years, 
but  he  doesn't  think  she  will  ever  be  able  to  walk 
again.  I  feel  so  sorry  for  her  and  for  poor  Susan.  Do 
you  know,  Susan  engaged  herself  to  John  Henry  last 
night  just  before  her  mother  was  paralyzed,  and  they 
were  to  be  married  in  December.  But  now  she  says 
she  will  give  him  up." 

"John  Henry!"  exclaimed  Oliver  in  amazement. 
"Why,  what  in  the  world  does  she  see  in  John  Henry?" 

"I  don't  know  —  one  never  knows  what  people  see 
in  each  other,  but  she  has  been  in  love  with  him  all  her 
life,  I  believe." 

"Well,  it's  rough  on  her.  Is  she  obliged  to  break  off 
with  him  now?" 

"She  says  it  wouldn't  be  fair  to  him  not  to.  Her 
whole  time  must  be  given  to  nursing  her  mother. 
There's  something  splendid  about  Susan,  Oliver.  I 
never  realized  it  as  much  as  I  did  to-day.  Whatever 
she  does,  you  may  be  sure  it  will  be  because  it  is  right 
to  do  it.  She  sees  everything  so  clearly,  and  her 
wishes  never  obscure  her  judgment." 

"It's  a  pity.     She'd  make  a  great  mother,  wouldn't 
she?    But  life  doesn't  seem  able  to  get  along  without  a 
sacrifice  of  the  fittest." 

In  the  afternoon  Mrs.  Pendleton  came  over,  but  the 
two  women  were  so  busy  arranging  the  furniture  in  its 
proper  place,  and  laying  away  Oliver's  and  the  chil 
dren's  things  in  drawers  and  closets,  that  not  until 
the  entire  house  had  been  put  in  order,  did  they  find 
time  to  sit  down  for  a  few  minutes  in  the  nursery  and 
discuss  the  future  of  Susan. 


HER  CHILDREN  265 

"I  believe  John  Henry  will  want  to  marry  her  and 
go  to  live  at  the  Treadwells',  if  Susan  will  let  him," 
remarked  Mrs.  Pendleton. 

"How  on  earth  could  he  get  on  with  Uncle  Cyrus?" 
Ever  since  her  marriage  Virginia  had  followed  Oliver's 
habit  and  spoken  of  Cyrus  as  "uncle." 

"Well,  I  don't  suppose  even  John  Henry  could  do 
that,  but  perhaps  he  thinks  anything  would  be  better 
than  losing  Susan." 

"And  he's  right,"  returned  Virginia  loyally,  while 
she  got  out  her  work-bag  and  began  sorting  the  array 
of  stockings  that  needed  darning.  "Do  you  know, 
mother,  Oliver  seems  to  think  that  I  might  go  to  New 
York  with  him." 

"And  leave  the  children,  Jinny?" 

"Of  course  I've  told  him  that  I  can't,  but  he's  asked 
me  two  or  three  times  to  let  you  look  after  them  for  a 
day  or  two." 

"I'd  love  to  do  it,  darling  —  but  you've  never  spent 
a  night  away  from  one  of  them  since  Lucy  was  born, 
have  you?" 

"No,  and  I'd  be  perfectly  miserable  —  only  I  can't 
make  Oliver  understand  it.  Of  course,  they'd  be  just 
as  safe  with  you  as  with  me,  but  I'd  keep  imagining 
every  minute  that  something  had  happened." 

"I  know  exactly  how  you  feel,  dear.  I  never  spent 
a  night  outside  my  home  after  my  first  child  came  until 
you  grew  up.  I  don't  see  how  any  true  woman  could 
bear  to  do  it,  unless,  of  course,  she  was  called  away 
because  of  a  serious  illness." 

"If  Oliver  were  ill,  or  you,  or  father,  I'd  go  in  a 
minute  unless  one  of  the  children  was  really  sick  — 
but  just  to  see  a  play  is  different,  and  I'd  feel  as  if  I 


266  VIRGINIA 

were  neglecting  my  duty.  The  funny  part  is  that 
Oliver  is  so  wrapped  up  in  this  play  that  he  doesn't 
seem  to  be  able  to  get  his  mind  off  it,  poor  darling. 
Father  was  never  that  way  about  his  sermons,  was  he?  " 

"Your  father  never  thought  of  himself  or  of  his  own 
interests  enough,  Jinny.  If  he  ever  had  a  fault,  it  was 
that.  But  I  suppose  he  approaches  perfection  as  nearly 
as  a  man  ever  did." 

Slipping  the  darning  gourd  into  the  toe  of  one  of 
Lucy's  little  white  stockings,  Virginia  gazed  atten 
tively  at  a  small  round  hole  while  she  held  her  needle 
arrested  slightly  above  it.  So  exquisitely  Madonna- 
like  was  the  poise  of  her  head  and  the  dreaming,  pro 
phetic  mystery  in  her  face,  that  Mrs.  Pendleton  waited 
almost  breathlessly  for  her  words. 

"There's  not  a  single  thing  that  I  would  change  in 
Oliver,  if  I  could,"  she  said  at  last. 

"It  is  so  beautiful  that  you  feel  that  way,  darling. 
I  suppose  all  happily  married  women  do." 

A  week  later,  across  Harry's  birthday  cake,  which 
stood  surrounded  by  four  candles  in  the  centre  of  the 
rectory  table,  Virginia  offered  her  cheerful  explana 
tion  of  Oliver's  absence,  in  reply  to  a  mild  inquiry  from 
the  rector.  "He  was  obliged  to  go  to  New  York  yes 
terday  about  the  rehearsal  of  'The  Beaten  Road,' 
father.  We  were  both  so  sorry  he  couldn't  be  here 
to-day,  but  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  wait  over." 

"It's  a  pity,"  said  the  rector  gently.  "Harry  will 
never  be  just  four  years  old  again,  will  you,  little 
man?"  Even  the  substantial  fact  that  Oliver's  play 
would,  it  was  hoped,  provide  a  financial  support  for  his 
children,  did  not  suffice  to  lift  it  from  the  region  of  the 
unimportant  in  the  mind  of  his  father-in-law. 


HER  CHILDREN  267 

"But  he'll  have  plenty  of  other  birthdays  when  papa 
will  be  here,"  remarked  Virginia  brightly.  Though 
she  had  been  a  little  hurt  to  find  that  Oliver  had  ar 
ranged  to  leave  home  the  night  before,  and  that  he  had 
appeared  perfectly  blind  to  the  importance  of  his  pres 
ence  at  Harry's  celebration,  her  native  good  sense  had 
not  permitted  her  to  make  a  grievance  out  of  the  matter. 
On  her  wedding  day  she  had  resolved  that  she  would 
not  be  exacting  of  Oliver's  time  or  attention,  and  the 
sweetness  of  her  disposition  had  smoothed  away  any 
difficulties  which  had  intervened  between  her  and  her 
ideal  of  wifehood.  From  the  first,  love  had  meant  to 
her  the  opportunity  of  giving  rather  than  the  privilege 
of  receiving,  and  her  failure  to  regard  herself  as  of 
supreme  consequence  in  any  situation  had  protected 
her  from  the  minor  troubles  and  disillusionments  of 
marriage. 

"It  is  too  bad  to  think  that  dear  Oliver  will  have  to 
be  away  for  two  whole  weeks,"  said  Mrs.  Pendleton. 

"Is  he  obliged  to  stay  that  long?"  asked  the  rector* 
sympathetically.  Never  having  missed  an  anniversary 
since  the  war,  he  could  look  upon  Oliver's  absence  as 
a  fit  subject  for  condolence. 

"He  can't  possibly  come  home  until  the  play  is 
produced,  and  that  won't  be  for  two  weeks  yet," 
replied  Virginia. 

"But  I  thought  it  rested  with  the  actors  now. 
Couldn't  they  go  on  just  as  well  without  him?" 

"He  thinks  not,  and,  of  course,  it  is  such  a  great  play 
that  he  doesn't  want  to  take  any  risks  with  it." 

"Of  course  he  doesn't,"  assented  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
who  had  believed  that  the  stage  was  immoral  until 
Virginia's  husband  began  to  write  for  it. 


268  VIRGINIA 

"I  know  he'll  come  back  the  very  first  minute  that 
he  can  get  away,"  said  Virginia  with  conviction,  before 
she  stooped  to  comfort  Harry,  who  was  depressed  by 
the  discovery  that  he  was  not  expected  to  eat  his  entire 
cake,  but  instantly  hopeful  when  he  was  promised  a 
slice  of  sister  Lucy's  in  the  summer. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  when  the  children,  warmly 
wrapped  in  extra  shawls  by  Mrs.  Pendleton,  were  led 
back  through  the  cold  to  the  house  in  Prince  Street,  one 
and  all  of  the  party  agreed  that  it  was  the  nicest  birth 
day  that  had  ever  been.  "I  like  grandma's  cake  bet 
ter  than  our  cake,"  announced  Harry  above  his  white 
muffler.  "Why  can't  we  have  cake  like  that,  mamma?  " 

He  was  trotting  sturdily,  with  his  hand  in  Virginia's, 
behind  the  perambulator,  which  contained  a  much 
muffled  Jenny,  and  at  his  words  Mrs.  Pendleton,  who 
walked  a  little  ahead,  turned  suddenly  and  hugged 
him  tight  for  an  instant. 

"Just  listen  to  the  darling  boy!"  she  exclaimed,  in  a 
choking  voice. 

"Because  nobody  else  can  make  such  good  cake  as 
grandma's,"  answered  Virginia,  quite  as  pleased  as 
her  mother.  "And  she's  going  to  give  you  one  every 
birthday  as  long  as  you  live." 

"Can't  I  have  another  birthday  soon,  mamma?" 

"Not  till  after  sister  Lucy's.  You  want  sister  Lucy 
to  have  one,  don't  you?  and  dear  little  Jenny?" 

"But  why  can't  I  have  a  cake  without  a  birthday, 
mamma?" 

'You  may,  precious,  and  grandma  will  make  you 
one,"  said  Mrs.  Pendleton,  as  she  helped  Marthy  wheel 
the  perambulator  over  the  slippery  crossing  and  into 
the  front  gate. 


HER  CHILDREN  269 

On  the  hall  table  there  was  a  telegram  from  Oliver, 
and  Virginia  tore  it  open  while  her  mother  and  Marthy 
unfastened  the  children's  wraps. 

"He's  at  the  Hotel  Bertram,"  she  said  joyously, 
"and  he  says  the  rehearsals  are  going  splendidly." 

"Did  he  mention  Harry's  birthday?"  asked  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  trying  to  hide  the  instinctive  dread  which 
the  sight  of  a  telegram  aroused  in  her. 

"He  must  have  forgotten  it.  Can't  you  come  up 
stairs  to  the  nursery  with  us,  mother?" 

"No,  your  father  is  all  alone.  I  must  be  getting 
back,"  replied  Mrs.  Pendleton  gently. 

An  hour  or  two  later,  when  Virginia  sat  in  her 
rocking-chair  before  the  nursery  fire,  with  Harry,  worn 
out  with  his  play  and  forgetful  of  the  dignity  of  his 
four  years,  asleep  in  her  lap,  she  opened  the  telegram 
again  and  reread  it  hungrily  while  the  light  of  love 
shone  in  her  face.  She  knew  intuitively  that  Oliver 
had  sent  the  telegram  because  he  had  not  written  — 
and  would  not  write,  probably,  until  he  had  finished 
with  the  hardest  work  of  his  play.  It  was  an  easy 
thing  to  do  —  it  took  considerably  less  of  his  time  than 
a  letter  would  have  done;  but  she  had  inherited  from 
her  mother  the  sentimental  vision  of  life  which  uncon 
sciously  magnifies  the  meaning  of  trivial  attentions. 
She  looked  through  her  emotions  as  through  a  prism 
on  the  simple  fact  of  his  telegraphing,  and  it  became 
immediately  transfigured.  How  dear  it  was  of  him  to 
realize  that  she  would  be  anxious  until  she  heard  from 
him!  How  lonely  he  must  be  all  by  himself  in  that 
great  city!  How  much  he  must  have  wanted  to  be 
with  Harry  on  his  birthday!  Sitting  there  in  the  fire- 
lit  nursery,  her  heart  sent  out  waves  of  love  and 


270  VIRGINIA 

sympathy  to  him  across  the  distance  and  the  twilight. 
On  the  rug  at  her  feet  Lucy  rocked  in  her  little  chair, 
crooning  to  her  doll  with  the  beginnings  of  the  mother 
instinct  already  softening  her  voice,  and  in  the  adjoin 
ing  room  Jenny  lay  asleep  in  her  crib  while  the  faithful 
Marthy  watched  by  her  side.  Beyond  the  window  a 
fine  icy  rain  had  begun  to  fall,  and  down  the  long  street 
she  could  see  the  lamps  flickering  in  revolving  circles 
of  frost.  In  the  midst  of  the  frozen  streets,  that  little 
centre  of  red  firelight  separated  her  as  completely  from 
the  other  twenty-one  thousand  human  beings  among 
whom  she  lived  as  did  the  glow  of  personal  joy  that 
suffused  her  thoughts.  From  the  dusk  below  she 
heard  the  tapping  of  a  blind  beggar's  stick  on  the  pave 
ment,  and  the  sound  made,  while  it  lasted,  a  plaintive 
accompaniment  to  the  lullaby  she  was  singing.  "Two 
whole  weeks,"  she  thought,  while  her  longing  reached 
out  to  that  unknown  room  in  which  she  pictured  Oliver 
sitting  alone.  "Two  whole  weeks.  How  hard  it  will 
be  for  him."  In  her  guarded  ignorance  of  the  world 
she  could  not  imagine  that  Oliver  was  suffering  less 
from  this  enforced  absence  from  all  he  loved  than  she 
herself  would  have  suffered  had  she  been  in  his  place. 
Of  course,  men  were  different  from  women  —  that 
ancient  dogma  was  embodied  in  the  leading  clause  of 
her  creed  of  life;  but  she  had  always  understood  that 
this  difference  vanished  in  some  miraculous  way  after 
marriage.  She  knew  that  Oliver  had  to  work,  of 
course  —  how  otherwise  could  he  support  his  family?  — 
but  the  idea  that  his  work  might  ever  usurp  the  place 
in  his  heart  that  belonged  to  her  and  the  children 
would  have  been  utterly  incomprehensible  to  her  had 
she  ever  thought  of  it.  Jealousy  was  an  alien  weed, 


HER  CHILDREN  271 

which  could  not  take  root  in  the  benign  soil  of  her 
nature. 

For  a  week  there  was  no  letter  from  Oliver,  and  at 
the  end  of  that  time  a  few  lines  scrawled  on  a  sheet  of 
hotel  paper  explained  that  he  spent  every  minute  of 
his  time  at  the  theatre. 

"Poor  fellow,  it's  dreadfully  hard  on  him,  isn't  it?" 
Virginia  said  to  her  mother,  when  she  showed  her  the 
imposing  picture  of  the  hotel  at  the  head  of  his  letter. 

There  was  no  hint  of  compassion  for  herself  in  her 
voice.  Her  pity  was  entirely  for  Oliver,  constrained 
to  be  away  for  two  whole  weeks  from  his  children,  who 
grew  more  interesting  and  delightful  every  day  that 
they  lived.  "Harry  has  gone  into  the  first  reader," 
she  added,  turning  from  the  storeroom  shelves  on 
which  she  was  laying  strips  of  white  oilcloth.  "He  will 
be  able  to  read  his  lesson  to  Oliver  when  he  comes 
home." 

"I  have  always  understood  that  your  father  could 
read  his  Bible  at  the  age  of  four,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  who  passionately  treasured  this  solitary 
proof  of  the  rector's  brilliancy. 

"I  am  afraid  Harry  is  backward.  He  hates  his 
letters  —  especially  the  letter  A  —  so  much  that  it 
takes  me  an  hour  sometimes  to  get  him  to  say  it  after 
me.  My  only  comfort  is  that  Oliver  says  he  couldn't 
read  a  line  until  he  was  over  seven  years  old.  Would 
you  scallop  this  oilcloth,  mother,  or  leave  it  plain?" 

"I  always  scallop  mine.  Mrs.  Treadwell  must  be 
better,  Jinny;  Susan  sent  me  a  dessert  yesterday." 

"Yes,  but  she  will  never  be  able  to  move  herself. 
Do  you  think  that  poor  Susan  will  marry  John  Henry 
now?" 


272  VIRGINIA 

"I  wonder?"  replied  Mrs.  Pendleton  vaguely. 
Then  the  sound  of  Harry's  laughter  floated  in  suddenly 
from  the  backyard,  and  her  eyes,  following  Virginia's, 
turned  automatically  to  the  pantry  window. 

"They've  come  home  for  a  snack,  I  suppose?"  she 
said.  " Shall  I  fix  some  bread  and  preserves  for  them?  " 

"Oh,  I'll  do  it,"  responded  Virginia,  while  she  reached 
for  the  crock  of  blackberry  jam  on  the  shelf  at  her 
side. 

Another  week  passed  and  there  was  no  word  from 
Oliver,  until  Mrs.  Pendleton  came  in  at  dusk  one  even 
ing,  with  an  anxious  look  on  her  face  and  a  folded  news 
paper  held  tightly  in  her  hand. 

"Have  you  seen  any  of  the  accounts  of  Oliver's 
play,  Jinny?"  she  asked. 

"No,  I  haven't  had  time  to  look  at  the  papers  to 
day—Harry  has  hurt  his  foot." 

She  spoke  placidly,  looking  up  from  the  nursery 
floor,  where  she  knelt  beside  a  basin  of  warm  water  at 
Harry's  feet.  "Poor  little  fellow,  he  fell  on  a  pile  of 
bricks,"  she  added,  "but  he's  such  a  hero  he  never 
even  whimpered,  did  he,  darling?" 

"But  it  hurt  bad,"  said  Harry  eagerly. 

"Of  course,  it  hurt  dreadfully,  and  if  he  hadn't  been 
a  man  he  would  have  cried." 

"Sister  would  have  cried,"  exulted  the  hero. 

"Indeed,  sister  would  have  cried.  Sister  is  a  girl," 
responded  Virginia,  smothering  him  with  kisses  over 
the  basin  of  water. 

But  Mrs.  Pendleton  refused  to  be  diverted  from  her 
purpose  even  by  the  heroism  of  her  grandson. 

"John  Henry  found  this  in  a  New  York  paper  and 
brought  it  to  me.  He  thought  you  ought  to  see 


HER  CHILDREN  273 

it,  though,  of  course,  it  may  not  be  so  serious  as  it 
sounds." 

"Serious?"  repeated  Virginia,  letting  the  soapy 
washrag  fall  back  into  the  basin  while  she  stretched 
out  her  moist  and  reddened  hand  for  the  paper. 

"It  says  that  the  play  didn't  go  very  well,"  pursued 
her  mother  guardedly.  "They  expect  to  take  it  off  at 
once,  and  —  and  Oliver  is  not  well  —  he  is  ill  in  the 
hotel  - 

"111?"  cried  Virginia,  and  as  she  rose  to  her  feet  the 
basin  upset  and  deluged  Harry's  shoes  and  the  rug  on 
which  she  had  been  kneeling.  Her  mind,  unable  to 
grasp  the  significance  of  a  theatrical  failure,  had  seized 
upon  the  one  salient  fact  which  concerned  her.  Plays 
might  succeed  or  fail,  and  it  made  little  difference,  but 
illness  was  another  matter  —  illness  was  something 
definite  and  material.  Illness  could  neither  be  talked 
away  by  religion  nor  denied  by  philosophy.  It  had  its 
place  in  her  mind  not  with  the  shadow,  but  with  the 
substance  of  things.  It  was  the  one  sinister  force 
which  had  always  dominated  her,  even  when  it  was 
absent,  by  the  sheer  terror  it  aroused  in  her  thoughts. 

"Let  me  see,"  she  said  chokingly.  "No,  I  can't 
read  it  —  tell  me." 

"It  only  says  that  the  play  was  a  failure  —  nobody 
understood  it,  and  a  great  many  people  said  it  was  — 
oh,  Virginia  —  immoral!  —  There's  something  about 
its  being  foreign  and  an  attack  on  American  ideals  — 
and  then  they  add  that  the  author  refused  to  be  inter 
viewed  and  they  understood  that  he  was  ill  in  his  room 
at  the  Bertram." 

The  charge  of  immorality,  which  would  have  crushed 
Virginia  at  another  time,  and  which,  even  in  the  in- 


274  VIRGINIA 

tense  excitement  of  the  moment,  had  been  an  added 
stab  to  Mrs.  Pendleton,  was  brushed  aside  as  if  it 
were  the  pestiferous  attack  of  an  insect. 

"I  am  going  to  him  now  —  at  once  —  when  does  the 
tram  leave,  mother?" 

"But,  Jinny,  how  can  you?  You  have  never  been 
to  New  York.  You  wouldn't  know  where  to  go." 

"But  he  is  ill.  Nothing  on  earth  is  going  to  keep 
me  away  from  him.  Will  you  please  wipe  Harry's  feet 
while  I  try  to  get  on  my  clothes?" 

"But,  Jinny,  the  children?" 

"You  and  Marthy  must  look  after  the  children. 
Of  course  I  can't  take  them  with  me.  Oh,  Harry, 
won't  you  please  hush  and  let  poor  mamma  dress? 
She  is  almost  distracted." 

Something  —  a  secret  force  of  character  which  even 
her  mother  had  not  suspected  that  she  possessed  —  had 
arisen  in  an  instant  and  dominated  the  situation.  She 
was  no  longer  the  gentle  and  doting  mother  of  a  minute 
ago,  but  a  creature  of  a  fixed  purpose  and  an  iron  resolu 
tion.  Even  her  face  appeared  to  lose  its  soft  contour 
and  hardened  until  Mrs.  Pendleton  grew  almost 
frightened.  Never  had  she  imagined  that  Virginia 
could  look  like  this. 

"I  am  sure  there  is  some  mistake  about  it.  Don't 
take  it  so  terribly  to  heart,  Jinny,"  she  pleaded,  while 
she  knelt  down,  cowed  and  obedient,  to  wipe  Harry's 
feet. 

Virginia,  who  had  already  torn  off  her  house  dress, 
and  was  hurriedly  buttoning  the  navy  blue  waist  in 
which  she  had  travelled,  looked  at  her  calmly  without 
pausing  for  an  instant  in  her  task. 

"Will  you  bind  up  his  foot  with  some  arnica?"  she 


HER  CHILDREN  275 

asked.  "There's  an  old  handkerchief  in  my  work 
basket.  I  want  you  and  father  to  come  here  and  stay 
until  I  get  back.  It  will  be  less  trouble  than  moving 
all  their  things  over  to  the  rectory." 

"Very  well,  darling,"  replied  Mrs.  Pendleton  meekly. 
"We'll  do  everything  that  we  can,  of  course,"  and  she 
added  timidly,  "Have  you  money  enough?" 

"I  have  thirty  dollars.  I  just  got  it  out  of  the  bank 
to-day  to  pay  Marthy  and  my  housekeeping  bills. 
Do  you  think  that  will  be  as  much  as  I'll  need?" 

"I  should  think  so,  dear.  Of  course,  if  you  find  you 
want  more,  you  can  telegraph  your  father." 

"The  train  doesn't  leave  for  two  hours,  so  I'll  have 
plenty  of  time  to  get  ready.  It's  just  half-past  six 
now,  and  Oliver  didn't  leave  the  house  till  eight 
o'clock." 

"Won't  you  take  a  little  something  to  eat  before 
you  go?" 

"I  couldn't  swallow  a  morsel,  but  I'll  sit  with  you 
and  the  children  as  soon  as  I've  put  the  things  in  my 
satchel.  I  couldn't  possibly  need  but  this  one  dress, 
could  I?  If  Oliver  isn't  really  ill,  I  hope  we  can  start 
home  to-morrow.  That  will  be  two  nights  that  I'll 
spend  away.  Oh,  mother,  ask  father  to  pray  that  he 
won't  be  ill." 

Her  voice  broke,  but  she  fiercely  bit  back  the  sob 
before  it  escaped  her  lips. 

"I  will,  dear,  I  promise  you.  We  will  both  think  of 
you  and  pray  for  you  every  minute.  Jinny,  are  you 
sure  it's  wise?  Couldn't  we  send  some  one  —  John 
Henry  would  go,  I  know  —  in  your  place?" 

A  spasm  of  irritation  contracted  Virginia's  features. 
"Please  don't,  mother,"  she  begged,  "it  just  worries 


276  VIRGINIA 

me.  Whatever  happens,  I  am  going."  Then  she 
sobbed  outright.  "He  wanted  me  to  go  with  him  at 
first,  and  I  wouldn't  because  I  thought  it  was  my  duty 
to  stay  at  home  with  the  children.  If  anything  should 
happen  to  him,  I'd  never  forgive  myself." 

She  was  slipping  her  black  cloth  skirt  over  her  head 
as  she  spoke,  and  her  terror-stricken  face  disappeared 
under  the  pleats  before  Mrs.  Pendleton  could  turn  to 
look  at  her.  When  her  head  emerged  again  above  the 
belt  of  her  skirt,  the  expression  of  her  features  had 
grown  more  natural. 

"You'll  go  down  in  a  carriage,  won't  you?"  inquired 
her  mother,  whose  mind  achieved  that  perfect  mixture 
of  the  sentimental  and  the  practical  which  is  rarely 
found  in  any  except  Southern  women. 

"I  suppose  I'll  have  to.  Then  I  can  take  my  satchel 
with  me,  and  that  will  save  trouble.  You  won't  for 
get,  mother,  that  I  give  Lucy  a  teaspoonful  of  cod-liver 
oil  after  each  meal,  will  you?  She  has  had  that  hack 
ing  cough  for  three  weeks,  and  I  want  to  break  it  up." 

"I'll  remember,  Jinny,  but  I'm  so  miserable  about 
your  going  alone." 

Turning  to  the  closet,  Virginia  unearthed  an  old 
black  satchel  from  beneath  a  pile  of  toys,  and  began 
dusting  it  inside  with  a  towel.  Then  she  took  out  some 
underclothes  from  a  bureau  drawer  and  a  few  toilet 
articles,  which  she  wrapped  in  pieces  of  tissue  paper. 
Her  movements  were  so  methodical  that  the  nervous 
ness  in  Mrs.  Pendleton's  mind  slowly  gave  way  to 
astonishment.  For  the  first  time  in  her  life,  perhaps, 
the  mother  realized  that  her  daughter  was  no  longer  a 
child,  but  a  woman,  and  a  woman  whose  character 
was  as  strong  and  as  determined  as  her  own.  Vaguely 


HER  CHILDREN  277 

she  understood,  without  analyzing  the  motives  that 
moved  Virginia,  that  this  strength  and  this  deter 
mination  which  so  impressed  her  had  arisen  from  those 
deep  places  in  her  daughter's  soul  where  emotion  and 
not  thought  had  its  source.  Love  was  guiding  her 
now  as  surely  as  it  had  guided  her  when  she  had  refused 
to  go  with  Oliver  to  New  York,  or  when,  but  a  few  min 
utes  ago,  she  had  knelt  down  to  wash  and  bandage 
Harry's  little  earth-stained  feet.  It  was  the  only  power 
to  which  she  would  ever  surrender.  No  other  prin 
ciple  would  ever  direct  or  control  her. 

Marthy,  who  appeared  with  Jenny's  supper,  was 
sent  out  to  order  the  carriage  and  to  bear  a  message  to 
the  rector,  and  Virginia  took  the  little  girl  in  her  lap 
and  began  to  crumble  the  bread  into  the  bowl  of  milk. 

"Wouldn't  you  like  me  to  do  that,  dear?"  asked  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  with  a  submission  in  her  tone  which  she 
had  never  used  before  except  to  the  rector.  "Don't 
you  want  to  fix  your  hair  over?" 

"Oh,  no,  I'll  keep  on  my  hat  till  I  go  to  bed,  so  it 
doesn't  matter.  I'd  rather  you'd  finish  my  packing 
if  you  don't  mind.  There's  nothing  more  to  go  in 
except  some  collars  and  my  bedroom  slippers  and  that 
red  wrapper  hanging  behind  the  door  in  the  closet." 

"Are  you  going  to  take  any  medicine?" 

"Only  that  bottle  of  camphor  and  some  mustard 
plasters.  Yes,  you'd  better  put  in  the  brandy  flask 
and  the  aromatic  ammonia.  You  can  never  tell  when 
you  will  need  them.  Now,  my  darlings,  mother  is 
going  away  and  you  must  keep  well  and  be  as  good  as 
gold  until  she  comes  back." 

To  the  amazement  of  Mrs.  Pendleton  (who  reflected 
that  you  really  never  knew  what  to  expect  of  children), 


278  VIRGINIA 

this  appeal  produced  an  immediate  and  extraordinary 
result.  Lucy,  who  had  been  fidgeting  about  and  trying 
to  help  with  the  packing,  became  suddenly  solemn  and 
dignified,  while  an  ennobling  excitement  mounted  to 
Harry's  face.  Never  particularly  obedient  before, 
they  became,  as  soon  as  the  words  were  uttered,  as 
amenable  as  angels.  Even  Jenny  stopped  feeding 
long  enough  to  raise  herself  and  pat  her  mother's  cheek 
with  ten  caressing,  milky  fingers. 

"Mother's  going  away,"  said  Lucy  in  a  solemn 
voice,  and  a  hush  fell  on  the  three  of  them. 

"And  grandma's  coming  here  to  live,"  added  Harry 
after  the  silence  had  grown  so  depressing  that  Virginia 
had  started  to  cry. 

"Not  to  live,  precious,"  corrected  Mrs.  Pendleton 
quickly.  "Just  to  spend  two  days  with  you.  Mother 
will  be  home  in  two  days." 

"Mother  will  be  home  in  two  days,"  repeated  Lucy. 
"May  I  stay  away  from  school  while  you're  away, 
mamma?" 

"And  may  I  stop  learning  my  letters?"  asked 
Harry. 

"No,  darlings,  you  must  do  just  as  if  I  were  here. 
Grandma  will  take  care  of  you.  Now  promise  me 
that  you  will  be  good." 

They  promised  obediently,  awed  to  submission  by 
the  stupendous  importance  of  the  change.  It  is  prob 
able  that  they  would  have  observed  with  less  surprise 
any  miraculous  upheaval  in  the  orderly  phenomena 
of  nature. 

"I  don't  see  how  I  can  possibly  leave  them  —  they 
are  so  good,  and  they  behave  exactly  as  if  they  realized 
how  anxious  I  am,"  wept  Virginia,  breaking  down 


HER  CHILDREN  279 

when  Marthy  came  to  announce  that  the  rector  had 
come  and  the  carriage  was  at  the  door. 

"Suppose  you  give  it  up,  Jinny.  I  —  I'll  send  your 
father,"  pleaded  Mrs.  Pendleton,  in  desperation  as  she 
watched  the  tragedy  of  the  parting. 

But  that  strange  force  which  the  situation  had  de 
veloped  in  Virginia  yielded  neither  to  her  mother's 
prayers  nor  to  the  last  despairing  wails  of  the  children, 
who  realized,  at  the  sight  of  the  black  bag  in  Marthy's 
hands,  that  their  providence  was  actually  deserting 
them.  The  deepest  of  her  instincts  —  the  instinct 
that  was  at  the  root  of  all  her  mother  love  —  was 
threatened,  and  she  rose  to  battle.  The  thing  she 
loved  best,  she  had  learned,  was  neither  husband  nor 
child,  but  the  one  that  needed  her. 


CHAPTER  V 

FAILURE 

SHE  had  lain  down  in  her  clothes,  impelled  by  the 
feeling  that  if  there  were  to  be  a  wreck  she  should 
prefer  to  appear  completely  dressed;  so  when  the 
chill  dawn  came  at  last  and  the  train  pulled  into 
Jersey  City,  she  had  nothing  to  do  except  to  adjust 
her  veil  and  wait  patiently  until  the  porter  came 
for  her  bag.  His  colour,  which  was  black,  inspired 
her  with  confidence,  and  she  followed  him  trust 
fully  to  the  platform,  where  he  delivered  her  to  an 
other  smiling  member  of  his  race.  The  cold  was  so 
penetrating  that  her  teeth  began  to  chatter  as  she 
turned  to  obey  the  orders  of  the  dusky  official  who  had 
assumed  command  of  her.  Never  had  she  felt  any 
thing  so  bleak  as  the  atmosphere  of  the  station.  Never 
in  her  life  had  she  been  so  lonely  as  she  was  while  she 
hurried  down  the  long  dim  platform  in  the  direction 
of  a  gate  which  looked  as  if  it  led  into  a  prison.  She 
was  chilled  through;  her  skin  felt  as  if  it  had  turned  to 
india  rubber;  there  was  a  sickening  terror  in  her  soul; 
and  she  longed  above  all  things  to  sit  down  on  one  of  the 
inhospitable  tracks  and  burst  into  tears;  but  some 
thing  stronger  than  impulse  urged  her  shivering  body 
onward  and  controlled  the  twitching  muscles  about 
her  mouth.  "In  a  few  minutes  I  shall  see  Oliver. 
Oliver  is  ill  and  I  am  going  to  him/'  she  repeated 

280 


FAILURE  281 

over  and  over  to  herself  as  if  she  were  reciting  a 
prayer. 

Inside  the  station  she  declined  the  offer  of  breakfast, 
and  was  conducted  to  the  ferry,  where  she  was  obliged 
to  run  in  order  to  catch  the  boat  that  was  just  leaving. 
Seated  on  one  of  the  long  benches  in  the  saloon,  with 
her  bag  at  her  feet  and  her  umbrella  grasped  tightly 
in  her  hand,  she  gazed  helplessly  at  the  other  passengers 
and  wondered  if  any  one  of  them  would  tell  her  what  to 
do  when  she  reached  the  opposite  side.  The  women, 
she  thought,  looked  hard  and  harassed,  and  the  men 
she  could  not  see  because  of  the  rows  of  newspapers 
behind  which  they  were  hidden.  Once  her  wandering 
gaze  caught  the  eyes  of  a  middle-aged  woman  in  rusty 
black,  who  smiled  at  her  above  the  head  of  a  sleeping 
child. 

"That's  a  pretty  woman,"  said  a  man  carelessly, 
as  he  put  down  his  paper,  and  she  realized  that  he  was 
talking  about  her  to  his  companion.  Then,  as  the 
terrible  outlines  of  the  city  grew  more  distinct  on 
the  horizon,  he  got  up  and  strolled  as  carelessly  past 
her  to  the  deck.  He  had  spoken  of  her  as  indifferently 
as  he  might  have  spoken  of  the  weather. 

As  the  tremendous  battlements  (which  were  not 
tremendous  to  any  of  the  other  passengers)  emerged 
slowly  from  the  mist  and  cleft  the  sombre  low-hanging 
clouds,  from  which  a  few  flakes  of  snow  fell,  her  ter 
ror  vanished  suddenly  before  the  excitement  which 
ran  through  her  body.  She  forgot  her  hunger,  her 
loneliness,  her  shivering  flesh,  her  benumbed  and 
aching  feet.  A  sensation  not  unlike  the  one  with 
which  the  rector  had  marched  into  his  first  battle, 
fortified  and  exhilarated  her.  The  fighting  blood  of 


282  VIRGINIA 

of  her  ancestors  grew  warm  in  her  veins.  New  York 
developed  suddenly  from  a  mere  spot  on  a  map 
into  a  romance  made  into  brick;  and  when  a  ray 
of  sunlight  pierced  the  heavy  fog,  and  lay  like  a  white 
wing  aslant  the  few  falling  snowflakes,  it  seemed  to  her 
that  the  shadowy  buildings  lost  their  sinister  aspect 
and  softened  into  a  haunting  and  mysterious  beauty. 
Somewhere  in  that  place  of  mystery  and  adventure 
Oliver  was  waiting  for  her!  He  was  a  part  of  that  vast 
movement  of  life  into  which  she  was  going.  Then, 
youth,  from  which  hope  is  never  long  absent,  flamed 
up  in  her,  and  she  was  glad  that  she  was  still  beau 
tiful  enough  to  cause  strangers  to  turn  and  look  at 
her. 

But  this  mood,  also,  passed  quickly,  and  a  little 
later,  while  she  rolled  through  the  grey  streets,  into 
which  the  slant  sunbeams  could  bring  no  colour,  she 
surrendered  again  to  that  terror  of  the  unknown  which 
had  seized  her  when  she  stood  in  the  station.  The 
beauty  had  departed  from  the  buildings;  the  pave 
ments  were  dirty;  the  little  discoloured  piles  of  snow 
made  the  crossings  slippery  and  dangerous;  and  she 
held  her  breath  as  they  passed  through  the  crowded 
streets  on  the  west  side,  overcome  by  the  fear  of  "catch 
ing"  some  malign  malady  from  the  smells  and  the  filth. 
The  negro  quarters  in  Dinwiddie  were  dirty  enough, 
but  not,  she  thought  with  a  kind  of  triumph,  quite  so 
dirty  as  New  York.  When  the  cab  turned  into  Fifth 
Avenue,  she  took  her  handkerchief  from  her  nostrils ; 
but  this  imposing  street,  which  had  not  yet  emerged 
from  its  evil  dream  of  Victorian  brownstone,  impressed 
her  chiefly  as  a  place  of  a  thousand  prisons.  It  was 
impossible  to  believe  that  those  frowning  walls,  undeco- 


FAILURE  283 

rated  by  a  creeper  or  the  shadow  of  a  tree,  could  really 
be  homes  where  people  lived  and  children  were  born. 

At  first  she  had  gazed  with  a  childish  interest  and 
curiosity  on  the  houses  she  was  passing;  then  the  sense 
of  strangeness  gave  place  presently  to  the  exigent  neces 
sity  of  reaching  Oliver  as  soon  as  possible.  But  the 
driver  appeared  indifferent  to  her  timid  taps  on  the 
glass  at  his  back,  while  the  horse  progressed  with 
the  feeble  activity  of  one  who  had  spent  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ineffectually  making  an  effort.  Her  im 
patience,  which  she  had  at  first  kept  under  control, 
began  to  run  in  quivers  of  nervousness  through  her 
limbs.  The  very  richness  of  her  personal  life,  which 
had  condensed  all  experience  into  a  single  emotional 
centre,  and  restricted  her  vision  of  the  universe  to  that 
solitary  window  of  the  soul  through  which  she  looked, 
prevented  her  now  from  seeing  in  the  city  anything 
except  the  dreary  background  of  Oliver's  illness  and 
failure.  The  naive  wonder  with  which  she  had  watched 
the  gigantic  outlines  shape  themselves  out  of  the  white 
fog,  had  faded  utterly  from  her  mind.  She  ached  with 
longing  to  reach  Oliver  and  to  find  him  well  enough  to 
take  the  first  train  back  to  Dinwiddie. 

At  the  hotel  her  bag  and  umbrella  were  wrested  from 
her  by  an  imperious  uniformed  attendant,  and  in  what 
seemed  to  her  an  incredibly  short  space  of  time,  she 
was  following  him  along  a  velvet  lined  corridor  on  the 
tenth  floor.  The  swift  ascent  in  the  elevator  had  made 
her  dizzy,  and  the  physical  sensation  reminded  her 
that  she  was  weak  for  food.  Then  the  attendant 
rapped  imperatively  at  a  door  just  beyond  a  shining 
staircase,  and  she  forgot  herself  as  completely  as  it  had 
been  her  habit  to  do  since  her  marriage. 


284  VIRGINIA 

"Come  in!"  responded  a  muffled  voice  on  the  in 
side,  and  as  the  door  swung  open,  she  saw  Oliver,  in  his 
dressing-gown,  and  with  an  unshaved  face,  reading  a 
newspaper  beside  a  table  on  which  stood  an  untasted 
cup  of  coffee. 

"I  didn't  ring,"  he  began  impatiently,  and  then 
starting  to  his  feet,  he  uttered  her  name  in  a  voice 
which  held  her  standing  as  if  she  were  suddenly  para 
lyzed  on  the  threshold.  "Virginia!" 

A  sob  rose  in  her  throat,  and  her  faltering  gaze  passed 
from  him  to  the  hotel  attendant,  who  responded  to  her 
unspoken  appeal  as  readily  as  if  it  were  a  part  of  his 
regular  business.  Pushing  her  gently  inside,  he  placed 
her  bag  and  umbrella  on  an  empty  chair,  took  up  the 
breakfast  tray  from  the  table,  and  inquired,  with  a 
kindness  which  strangely  humbled  her,  if  she  wished 
to  give  an  order.  When  she  had  helplessly  shaken  her 
head,  he  bowed  and  went  out,  closing  the  door  softly 
upon  their  meeting. 

'What  in  thunder,  Virginia?"  began  Oliver,  and  she 
realized  that  he  was  angry. 

"I  heard  you  were  sick  —  that  the  play  had  failed. 
I  was  so  sorry  I  hadn't  come  with  you  -  "  she  ex 
plained;  and  then,  understanding  for  the  first  time  the 
utter  foolishness  of  what  she  had  done,  she  put  her 
hands  up  to  her  face  and  burst  into  tears. 

He  had  risen  from  his  chair,  but  he  made  no  move 
ment  to  come  nearer  to  her,  and  when  she  took  down 
her  hands  in  order  to  wipe  her  eyes,  she  saw  an  expres 
sion  in  his  face  which  frightened  her  by  its  strangeness. 
She  had  caught  him  when  that  guard  which  every 
human  being  —  even  a  husband  —  wears,  had  fallen 
away,  though  in  her  ignorance  it  seemed  to  her  that 


FAILURE  285 

he  had  become  suddenly  another  person.  That  she 
had  entered  into  one  of  those  awful  hours  of  self- 
realization,  when  the  soul  must  face  its  limitations 
alone  and  make  its  readjustments  in  silence,  did  not 
occur  to  her,  because  she,  who  had  lived  every  minute 
of  her  life  under  the  eyes  of  her  parents  or  her  chil 
dren,  could  have  no  comprehension  of  the  hunger  for 
solitude  which  was  devouring  Oliver's  heart.  She 
saw  merely  that  he  did  not  want  her  —  that  she  had 
not  only  startled,  but  angered  him  by  coming;  and 
the  bitterness  of  that  instant  seemed  to  her  more  than 
she  was  able  to  bear.  Something  had  changed  him;  he 
was  older,  he  was  harder,  he  was  embittered. 

"I  —  I  am  so  sorry,"  she  stammered;  and  because 
even  in  the  agony  of  this  moment  she  could  not  think 
long  of  herself,  she  added  almost  humbly,  "Would  you 
rather  that  I  should  go  back  again?"  Then,  by  the 
haggard  look  of  his  face  as  he  turned  away  from  her 
towards  the  window,  she  saw  that  he,  also,  was  suffering, 
and  her  soul  yearned  over  him  as  it  had  yearned  over 
Harry  when  he  had  had  the  toothache.  "Oh,  Oliver!" 
she  cried,  and  again,  "Oh,  Oliver,  won't  you  let  me 
help  you?" 

But  he  was  in  the  mood  of  despairing  humiliation 
when  one  may  support  abuse  better  than  pity.  His 
failure,  he  knew,  had  been  undeserved,  and  he  was  still 
smarting  from  the  injustice  of  it  as  from  the  blows  of  a 
whip.  For  twenty -four  hours  his  nerves  had  been  on 
the  rack,  and  his  one  desire  had  been  to  hide  himself 
in  the  spiritual  nakedness  to  which  he  was  stripped. 
Had  he  been  obliged  to  choose  a  witness  to  his  suffer 
ing,  it  is  probable  that  he  would  have  selected  a  stran 
ger  from  the  street  rather  than  his  wife.  The  one 


286  VIRGINIA 

thing  that  could  have  helped  him,  an  intelligent  justi 
fication  of  his  work,  she  was  powerless  to  give.  In  his 
need  she  had  nothing  except  love  to  offer;  and  love, 
she  felt  instinctively,  was  not  the  balm  for  his  wound. 

Afraid  and  yet  passionately  longing  to  meet  his 
eyes,  she  let  her  gaze  fall  away  from  him  and  wander 
timidly,  as  if  uncertain  where  to  rest,  about  the  dis 
ordered  room,  with  its  dull  red  walls,  its  cheap  Notting 
ham  lace  curtains  tied  back  with  cords,  its  elaborately 
carved  walnut  furniture,  and  its  litter  of  days  old  news 
papers  upon  the  bed.  She  saw  his  neckties  hanging  in 
an  uneven  row  over  the  oblong  mirror,  and  she  con 
trolled  a  nervous  impulse  to  straighten  them  out  and 
put  them  away. 

"Why  didn't  you  telegraph  me?"  he  asked,  after  a 
pause  in  which  she  had  struggled  vainly  to  look  as  if  it 
were  the  most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that  he  should 
receive  her  in  this  way.  "If  I  had  known  you  were 
coming,  I  should  have  met  you." 

"Father  wanted  to,  but  I  wouldn't  let  him,"  she 
answered.  "I  —  I  thought  you  were  sick." 

In  spite  of  his  despair,  it  is  probable  that  at  the 
moment  she  was  suffering  more  than  he  was  —  since 
a  wound  to  love  strikes  deeper,  after  all,  than  a 
wound  to  ambition.  Where  she  had  expected  to  find 
her  husband,  she  felt  vaguely  that  she  had  encountered 
a  stranger,  and  she  was  overwhelmed  by  that  sense  of 
irremediable  loss  which  follows  the  discovery  of  terrible 
and  unfamiliar  qualities  in  those  whom  we  have  known 
and  loved  intimately  for  years.  The  fact  that  he  was 
plainly  struggling  to  disguise  his  annoyance,  that  he  was 
trying  as  hard  as  she  to  assume  a  manner  he  did  not  feel, 
only  added  a  sardonic  humour  to  poignant  tragedy. 


FAILURE  287 

"Have  you  had  anything  to  eat?  "  he  asked  abruptly, 
and  remembering  that  he  had  not  kissed  her  when  she 
entered,  he  put  his  arm  about  her  and  brushed  her 
cheek  with  his  lips. 

"No,  I  waited  to  breakfast  with  you.  I  was  in  such 
a  hurry  to  get  here." 

"By  Jove!"  he  exclaimed,  and  going  over  to  the 
bell,  he  touched  it  with  the  manner  of  a  man  wrho  is 
delighted  that  anything  so  perfectly  practical  as  food 
exists  in  the  world. 

While  he  was  speaking  to  the  waiter,  she  took  off 
her  hat,  and  washed  the  stains  of  smoke  and  tears  from 
her  face.  Her  hair  was  a  sight,  she  thought,  but  while 
she  gazed  back  at  her  stricken  eyes  in  the  little  mir 
ror  over  the  washstand,  she  recalled  with  a  throb  of 
gratitude  that  the  stranger  on  the  boat  had  said  she 
was  pretty.  She  felt  so  humble  that  she  clung  almost 
with  desperation  to  the  thought  that  Oliver  always 
liked  to  have  people  admire  her. 

When  she  turned  from  the  washstand,  he  was  reading 
the  newspaper  again,  and  he  put  it  aside  with  a  forced 
cheerfulness  to  arrange  the  table  for  breakfast. 

"Aren't  you  going  to  have  something  too?"  she 
asked,  looking  disconsolately  at  the  tray,  for  all  her 
hunger  had  departed.  If  he  would  only  be  natural 
she  felt  that  she  could  bear  anything!  If  he  would 
only  stop  trying  to  pretend  that  he  was  not  miserable 
and  that  nothing  had  happened !  After  all,  it  couldn't 
be  so  very  bad,  could  it?  It  wasn't  in  the  least  as  if 
one  of  the  children  were  ill. 

She  poured  out  a  cup  of  coffee  for  him  before  drinking 
her  own,  and  putting  it  down  on  the  table  at  his  side, 
waited  patiently  until  he  should  look  up  again  from  his 


288  VIRGINIA 

paper.  A  lump  as  hard  as  lead  had  risen  in  her  throat 
and  was  choking  her. 

"Are  the  children  well?"  he  asked  presently,  and  she 
answered  with  an  affected  brightness  more  harrowing 
than  tears,  "Yes,  mother  is  taking  care  of  them. 
Lucy  still  has  the  little  cough,  but  I'm  giving  her 
cod-liver  oil.  And,  what  do  you  think?  I  have  a  sur 
prise  for  you.  Harry  can  read  the  first  lesson  in  his 
reader." 

He  smiled  kindly  back  at  her,  but  from  the  vacancy 
in  his  face,  she  realized  that  he  had  not  taken  in  a  word 
that  she  had  said.  His  trouble,  whatever  it  was,  could 
absorb  him  so  utterly  that  he  had  ceased  even  to  be 
interested  in  his  children.  He,  who  had  borne  so  calmly 
the  loss  of  that  day-old  baby  for  whom  she  had  grieved 
herself  to  a  shadow,  was  plunged  into  this  condition  of 
abject  hopelessness  merely  because  his  play  was  a 
failure !  It  was  not  only  impossible  for  her  to  share  his 
suffering;  she  realized,  while  she  watched  him,  that 
she  could  not  so  much  as  comprehend  it.  Her  limi 
tations,  of  which  she  had  never  been  acutely  conscious 
until  to-day,  appeared  suddenly  insurmountable. 
Love,  which  had  seemed  to  her  to  solve  all  problems 
and  to  smooth  all  difficulties,  was  helpless  to  enlighten 
her.  It  was  not  love  —  it  was  something  else  that  she 
needed  now,  and  of  this  something  else  she  knew  not 
even  so  much  as  the  name. 

She  drank  her  coffee  quickly,  fearing  that  if  she  did 
not  take  food  she  should  lose  control  of  herself  and  anger 
him  by  a  display  of  hysterics. 

"I  don't  wonder  you  couldn't  drink  your  coffee," 
she  said  with  a  quivering  little  laugh.  "It  must  have 
been  made  yesterday."  Then,  unable  to  bear  the 


FAILURE  289 

strain  any  longer,  she  cried  out  sharply:  "Oh,  Oliver, 
won't  you  tell  me  what  is  the  matter?" 

His  look  grew  hard,  while  a  spasm  of  irritation  con 
tracted  his  mouth. 

"There's  nothing  you  need  worry  about  —  except 
that  I've  borrowed  money,  and  I'm  afraid  we'll  have  to 
cut  down  things  a  bit  until  I  manage  to  pay  it  back." 

"Why,  of  course  we'll  cut  down  things,"  she  almost 
laughed  in  her  relief.  "We  can  live  on  a  great  deal 
less,  and  I'll  market  so  carefully  that  you  will  hardly 
know  the  difference.  I'll  put  Marthy  in  the  kitchen 
and  take  care  of  the  children  myself.  It  won't  be  the 
least  bit  of  trouble." 

She  knew  by  his  face  that  he  was  grateful  to  her, 
though  he  said  merely:  "I'm  a  little  knocked  up,  I 
suppose,  so  you  mustn't  mind.  I've  got  a  beast  of  a 
headache.  Martin  is  going  to  take  'The  Beaten  Road' 
off  at  the  end  of  the  week,  you  know,  and  he  doesn't 
think  now  that  he  will  produce  the  other.  There 
wasn't  a  good  word  for  me  from  the  critics,  and  yet, 
damn  them,  I  know  that  the  play  is  the  best  one  that's 
ever  come  out  of  America.  But  it's  real  —  that's 
why  they  fell  foul  of  it  —  it  isn't  stuffed  with  sugar 
plums." 

"Why,  what  in  the  world  possessed  them?"  she 
returned  indignantly.  "It  is  a  beautiful  play." 

She  saw  him  flinch  at  the  word,  and  the  sombre  irri 
tation  which  his  outburst  had  relieved  for  a  minute, 
settled  again  on  his  features.  Her  praise,  she  under 
stood,  only  exasperated  him,  though  she  did  not  realize 
that  it  was  the  lack  of  discrimination  in  it  which 
aroused  his  irritation.  At  the  moment,  intelligent 
appreciation  of  his  work  would  have  been  bread  and 


290  VIRGINIA 

meat  to  him,  but  her  pitiful  attempts  at  flattery  were 
like  bungling  touches  on  raw  flesh.  Had  he  written 
the  veriest  rags  of  sentimental  rubbish,  he  knew  she 
would  as  passionately  have  defended  their  "beauty." 

"I'll  get  dressed  quickly  and  look  after  some  busi 
ness,"  he  said,  "and  we'll  go  home  to-night." 

Her  eyes  shone,  and  she  began  to  eat  her  eggs  with 
a  resolution  born  of  the  consoling  memory  of  Din- 
widdie.  If  only  they  could  be  at  home  again  with  the 
children,  she  felt  that  all  this  trouble  and  misunder 
standing  would  vanish.  With  a  strange  confusion  of 
ideas,  it  seemed  to  her  that  Oliver's  suffering  had  been 
in  some  mysterious  way  produced  by  New  York,  and 
that  it  existed  merely  within  the  circumscribed  limits 
of  this  dreadful  city. 

"Oh,  Oliver,  that  will  be  lovely!"  she  exclaimed,  and 
tried  to  subdue  the  note  of  joy  in  her  voice. 

"I  shan't  be  able  to  get  back  to  lunch,  I'm  afraid. 
What  will  you  do  about  it?" 

"Don't  bother  about  me,  dearest.  I'll  dress  and 
take  a  little  walk  just  to  see  what  Fifth  Avenue  is  like. 
I  can't  get  lost  if  I  go  perfectly  straight  up  the  street, 
can  I?" 

"Fifth  Avenue  is  only  a  block  away.  You  can't 
miss  it.  Now  I'll  hurry  and  be  off." 

She  knew  that  he  was  anxious  to  be  alone,  and  so 
firmly  was  she  convinced  that  this  mood  of  detachment ' 
would  leave  him  as  soon  as  he  was  in  the  midst  of  his 
family  again,  that  she  was  able  to  smile  tolerantly 
when  he  kissed  her  hastily,  and  seizing  his  hat,  rushed 
from  the  room.  For  a  time  after  he  had  gone  she 
amused  herself  putting  his  things  in  order  and  pack 
ing  the  little  tin  trunk  he  had  brought  with  him; 


FAILURE  291 

but  the  red  walls  and  the  steam  heat  in  the  room  sick 
ened  her  at  last,  and  when  she  had  bathed  and  dressed 
and  there  seemed  nothing  left  for  her  to  do  except  get 
out  her  work-bag  and  begin  darning  his  socks,  she 
decided  that  she  would  put  on  her  hat  and  go  out  for  a 
walk.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  to  feel  hurt  by  the  casual 
manner  in  which  Oliver  had  shifted  the  responsibility 
of  her  presence  —  partly  owing  to  a  personal  inability 
to  take  a  selfish  point  of  view  about  anything,  and 
partly  because  of  that  racial  habit  of  making  allowances 
for  the  male  in  which  she  had  been  sedulously  trained 
from  her  infancy. 

At  the  door  the  porter  directed  her  to  Fifth  Avenue; 
and  she  ventured  cautiously  as  far  as  the  flowing  rivulet 
at  the  corner,  where  she  would  probably  have  stood 
until  Oliver's  return,  if  a  friendly  policeman  had  not 
observed  her  stranded  helplessness  and  assisted  her 
over.  "How  on  earth  am  I  to  get  back  again?"  she 
thought,  smiling  up  at  him;  and  this  anxiety  engrossed 
her  so  completely  that  for  a  minute  she  forgot  to  look  at 
the  amazing  buildings  and  the  curious  crowds  that  hur 
ried  frantically  in  their  shadows.  Then  a  pale  finger  of 
sunlight  pointed  suddenly  across  the  high  roofs  in  front 
of  her,  and  awed,  in  spite  of  her  preoccupation,  by  the 
strangeness  of  the  scene,  she  stopped  and  watched  the 
moving  carriages  in  the  middle  of  the  street  and  the 
never  ending  stream  of  people  that  passed  on  the  wet 
pavements.  Occasionally,  while  she  stood  there,  some 
of  the  passers-by  would  turn  and  look  at  her  with 
friendly  admiring  eyes,  as  though  they  found  some 
thing  pleasant  in  her  lovely  wistful  face  and  her 
old-fashioned  clothes;  and  this  pleased  her  so  much 
that  she  lost  her  feeling  of  loneliness.  It  was  a  kindly 


292  VIRGINIA 

crowd,  and  because  she  was  young  and  pretty  and  worth 
looking  at,  a  part  of  the  exhilaration  of  this  unknown  life 
passed  into  her,  and  she  felt  for  a  little  while  as 
though  she  belonged  to  it.  The  youth  in  her  responded 
to  the  passing  call  of  the  streets,  to  this  call  which 
fluted  like  the  sound  of  pipes  in  her  blood,  and  lifted 
her  for  a  moment  out  of  the  narrow  track  of  individual 
experience.  It  was  charming  to  feel  that  all  these 
strangers  looked  kindly  upon  her,  and  she  tried  to  show 
that  she  returned  their  interest  by  letting  a  little  cor 
dial  light  shine  in  her  eyes.  For  the  first  time  in  her 
life  the  personal  boundaries  of  sympathy  fell  away  from 
her,  and  she  realized,  in  a  fleeting  sensation,  something 
of  the  vast  underlying  solidarity  of  human  existence. 
A  humble  baby  in  a  go-cart  waited  at  one  of  the  cross 
ings  for  the  traffic  to  pass,  and  bending  over,  she  hugged 
him  ecstatically,  not  because  he  reminded  her  of  Harry, 
but  simply  because  he  was  a  baby. 

"He  is  so  sweet  I  just  had  to  squeeze  him,"  she  said 
to  his  mother,  a  working  woman  in  a  black  shawl,  who 
stood  behind  him. 

Then  the  two  women  smiled  at  each  other  in  that 
freemasonry  of  motherhood  of  which  no  man  is  aware, 
and  Virginia  wondered  why  people  had  ever  foolishly 
written  of  the  "indifference  of  a  crowd."  The  chill 
which  had  lain  over  her  heart  since  her  meeting  with 
Oliver  melted  utterly  in  the  glow  with  which  she  had 
embraced  the  baby  at  the  crossing.  With  the  feeling 
of  his  warm  little  body  in  her  arms,  everything  had  be 
come  suddenly  right  again.  New  York  was  no  longer 
a  dreadful  city,  and  Oliver's  failure  appeared  as  brief 
as  the  passing  pang  of  a  toothache.  Her  natural 
optimism  had  returned  like  a  rosy  mist  to  embellish 


FAILURE  293 

and  obscure  the  prosaic  details  of  the  situation.  Like 
the  cheerful  winter  sunshine,  which  transfigured  the 
harsh  outlines  of  the  houses,  her  vision  adorned  the 
reality  in  the  mere  act  of  beholding  it. 

Midway  of  the  next  block  there  was  a  jeweller's 
window  full  of  gems  set  in  intricate  patterns,  and  stop 
ping  before  it,  she  studied  the  trinkets  carefully  in  the 
hope  of  being  able  to  describe  them  to  Lucy.  Then  a 
man  selling  little  automatic  pigs  at  the  corner  attracted 
her  attention,  and  she  bought  two  for  Harry  and 
Jenny,  and  carried  them  triumphantly  away  in  boxes 
under  her  arm.  She  knew  that  she  looked  countrified 
and  old-fashioned,  and  that  nobody  she  met  was  wear 
ing  either  a  hat  or  a  dress  which  in  the  least  resembled 
the  style  of  hers;  but  the  knowledge  of  this  did  not 
trouble  her,  because  in  her  heart  she  preferred  the  kind 
of  clothes  which  were  worn  in  Dinwiddie.  The  women 
in  New  York  seemed  to  her  artificial  and  affected  in 
appearance,  and  they  walked,  she  thought,  as  if  they 
were  trying  to  make  people  look  at  them.  The  bold 
way  they  laced  in  their  figures  she  regarded  as  almost 
indecent,  and  she  noticed  that  they  looked  straight 
into  the  eyes  of  men  instead  of  lowering  their 
lashes  when  they  passed  them.  Her  provincialism, 
like  everything  else  which  belonged  to  her  and  had 
become  endeared  by  habit  and  association,  seemed  to 
her  so  truly  beautiful  and  desirable  that  she  would  not 
have  parted  with  it  for  worlds. 

Turning  presently,  she  walked  down  Fifth  Avenue 
as  far  as  Twenty-third  Street,  and  then,  confused  by 
the  crossing,  she  passed  into  Broadway,  without  know 
ing  that  it  was  Broadway,  until  she  was  enlightened  by 
a  stranger  to  whom  she  appealed.  When  she  began  to 


294  VIRGINIA 

retrace  her  steps,  she  discovered  that  she  was  hungry, 
and  she  longed  to  go  into  one  of  the  places  where  she 
saw  people  eating  at  little  tables;  but  her  terror  of 
what  she  had  heard  of  the  high  prices  of  food  in  New 
York  restaurants  restrained  her.  General  Goode 
still  told  of  paying  six  dollars  and  a  half  for  a 
dinner  he  had  ordered  in  a  hotel  in  Fifth  Avenue, 
and  her  temperamental  frugality,  reinforced  by 
anxiety  as  to  Oliver's  debts,  preferred  to  take  no 
unnecessary  risks  with  the  small  amount  in  her  pocket 
book.  Oliver,  of  course,  would  have  laughed  at  her 
petty  economies,  and  have  ordered  recklessly  whatever 
attracted  his  appetite;  but,  as  she  gently  reminded 
herself  again,  men  were  different.  On  the  whole, 
this  lordly  prodigality  pleased  her  rather  than  other 
wise.  She  felt  that  it  was  in  keeping  with  the 
bigness  and  the  virility  of  the  masculine  ideal;  and  if 
there  were  pinching  and  scraping  to  be  done,  she  im 
measurably  preferred  that  it  should  fall  to  her  lot  to 
do  it  and  not  to  Oliver's. 

At  the  hotel  she  found  that  Oliver  had  not  come  in, 
and  after  a  belated  luncheon  of  tea  and  toast  in  the 
dining-room,  she  went  upstairs  and  sat  down  to  watch 
for  his  return  between  the  Nottingham  lace  curtains  at 
the  window.  From  the  terrific  height,  on  which  she 
felt  like  a  sparrow,  she  could  see  a  row  of  miniature 
puppets  passing  back  and  forth  at  the  corner  of  Fifth 
Avenue.  For  hours  she  tried  in  vain  to  distinguish 
the  figure  of  Oliver  in  the  swiftly  moving  throng,  and 
in  spite  of  herself  she  could  not  repress  a  feeling  of 
pleasant  excitement.  She  knew  that  Oliver  would 
think  that  she  ought  to  be  depressed  by  his  failure, 
yet  she  could  not  prevent  the  return  of  a  childlike 


FAILURE  295 

confidence  in  the  profound  goodness  of  life.  Every 
thing  would  be  right,  everything  was  eternally  bound 
to  be  right  from  the  beginning.  That  inherited  casuis 
try  of  temperament,  which  had  confused  the  pleasant 
with  the  true  for  generations,  had  become  in  her  less  a 
moral  conviction  than  a  fixed  quality  of  soul.  To  dwell 
even  for  a  minute  on  "the  dark  side  of  things"  awoke  in 
her  the  same  instinct  of  mortal  sin  that  she  had  felt  at 
the  discovery  that  Oliver  was  accustomed  to  "break" 
the  Sabbath  by  reading  profane  literature. 

When,  at  last,  as  the  dusk  fell  in  the  room,  she  heard 
his  hasty  step  in  the  corridor,  a  wave  of  joyful 
expectancy  rose  in  her  heart  and  trembled  for  utter 
ance  on  her  lips.  Then  the  door  opened;  he  came  from 
the  gloom  into  the  pale  gleam  of  light  that  shone  in 
from  the  window,  and  with  her  first  look  into  his  face 
her  rising  joy  ebbed  quickly  away.  A  new  element, 
something  for  which  neither  her  training  nor  her  ex 
perience  had  prepared  her,  entered  at  that  instant 
into  her  life.  Not  the  external  world,  but  the  sacred 
inner  circle  in  which  they  had  loved  and  known  each 
other  was  suddenly  clouded.  Everything  outside  of 
this  was  the  same,  but  the  fact  confronted  her  there  as 
grimly  as  a  physical  sore.  The  evil  struck  at  the  very 
heart  of  her  love,  since  it  was  not  life,  but  Oliver  that 
had  changed. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   SHADOW 

OLIVER  had  changed;  for  months  this  thought 
had  lain  like  a  stone  on  her  heart.  She  went  about  her 
life  just  as  usual,  yet  never  for  an  instant  during  that 
long  winter  and  spring  did  she  lose  consciousness  of  its 
dreadful  presence.  It  was  the  first  thing  to  face  her 
in  the  morning,  the  last  thing  from  which  she  turned 
when,  worn  out  with  perplexity,  she  fell  asleep  at  night. 
During  the  day  the  children  took  her  thoughts  away 
from  it  for  hours,  but  never  once,  not  even  while  she 
heard  Harry's  lessons  or  tied  the  pink  or  the  blue  bows 
in  Lucy's  and  Jenny's  curls,  did  she  ever  really  forget 
it.  Since  the  failure  of  Oliver's  play,  which  had 
seemed  to  her  such  a  little  thing  in  itself,  something 
had  gone  out  of  their  marriage,  and  this  something  was 
the  perfect  understanding  which  had  existed  between 
them.  There  were  times  when  her  sympathy  appeared 
to  her  almost  to  infuriate  him.  Even  her  efforts  towards 
economy  —  for  since  their  return  from  New  York  she 
had  put  Marthy  into  the  kitchen  and  had  taken  entire 
charge  of  the  children  —  irritated  rather  than  pleased 
him.  And  the  more  she  irritated  him,  the  more  she 
sought  zealously,  by  innumerable  small  attentions,  to 
please  and  to  pacify  him.  Instead  of  leaving  him  in 
the  solitude  which  he  sought,  and  which  might 
have  restored  him  to  his  normal  balance  of  mind,  she 

296 


THE  SHADOW  297 

became  possessed,  whenever  he  shut  himself  in  his 
study  or  went  alone  for  a  walk,  with  a  frenzied  dread 
lest  he  should  permit  himself  to  "brood"  over  the 
financial  difficulties  in  which  the  wreck  of  his  ambition 
had  placed  them.  She,  who  feared  loneliness  as  if  it 
were  the  smallpox,  devised  a  thousand  innocent  decep 
tions  by  which  she  might  break  in  upon  him  when  he 
sat  in  his  study  and  discover  whether  he  was  actually 
reading  the  papers  or  merely  pretending  to  do  so. 
In  her  natural  simplicity,  it  never  occurred  to  her  to 
penetrate  beneath  the  surface  disturbances  of  his 
mood.  These  engrossed  her  so  completely  that  the 
cause  of  them  was  almost  forgotten.  Dimly  she 
realized  that  this  strange,  almost  physical  soreness, 
which  made  him  shrink  from  her  presence  as  a  man  with 
weak  eyes  shrinks  from  the  light,  was  the  outward 
sign  of  a  secret  violence  in  his  soul,  yet  she  ministered 
helplessly  to  each  passing  explosion  of  temper  as  if  it 
were  the  cause  instead  of  the  result  of  his  suffering. 
Introspection,  which  had  lain  under  a  moral  ban  in  a 
society  that  assumed  the  existence  of  an  unholy  alli 
ance  between  the  secret  and  the  evil,  could  not  help  her 
because  she  had  never  indulged  in  it.  Partly  because 
of  the  ingenuous  candour  of  the  Pendleton  nature,  and 
partly  owing  to  the  mildness  of  a  climate  which  made  it 
more  comfortable  for  Dinwiddians  to  live  for  six 
months  of  the  year  on  their  front  porches  and  with 
their  windows  open,  she  shared  the  ingrained  Southern 
distrust  of  any  state  of  mind  which  could  not  cheerfully 
support  the  observation  of  the  neighbours.  She  knew 
that  he  had  turned  from  his  work  with  disgust,  and  if 
he  wasn't  working  and  wasn't  reading,  what  on  earth 
could  he  be  doing  alone  unless  he  had,  as  she  imagined 


298  VIRGINIA 

in  desperation,  begun  wilfully  to  "nurse  his  despond 
ency?"  Even  the  rector  couldn't  help  her  here  — 
for  his  knowledge  of  character  was  strictly  limited 
to  the  types  of  the  soldier  and  the  churchman,  and 
his  son-in-law  did  not  belong,  he  admitted,  in  either 
of  these  familiar  classifications.  At  the  bottom  of  his 
soul  the  good  man  had  always  entertained  for  Oliver 
something  of  the  kindly  contempt  with  which  his 
generation  regarded  a  healthy  male,  who,  it  suspected, 
would  decline  either  to  preach  a  sermon  or  to  kill  a 
man  in  the  cause  of  morality.  But  on  one  line  of 
treatment  father  and  daughter  were  passionately 
agreed  —  whatever  happened,  it  was  not  good  that 
Oliver  should  be  left  by  himself  for  a  minute.  When  he 
was  in  the  bank,  of  course,  where  Cyrus  had  found  him 
a  place  as  a  clerk  on  an  insignificant  salary,  it  might  be 
safely  assumed  that  he  was  cheered  by  the  unfailing 
company  of  his  fellow- workers;  but  when  he  came 
home,  the  responsibility  of  his  distraction  and  his  cure 
rested  upon  Virginia  and  the  children.  And  since 
her  opinion  of  her  own  power  to  entertain  was  mod 
est,  she  fell  back  with  a  sublime  confidence  on  the 
unrivalled  brilliancy  and  the  infinite  variety  of  the 
children's  prattle.  During  the  spring,  as  he  grew  more 
and  more  indifferent  and  depressed,  she  arranged  that 
the  children  should  be  with  him  every  instant  while 
he  was  in  the  house.  She  brought  Jenny's  high  chair 
to  the  table  in  order  that  the  adorable  infant  might 
breakfast  with  her  father;  she  kept  Harry  up  an  hour 
later  at  night  so  that  he  might  add  the  gaiety  of  his 
innocent  mirth  to  their  otherwise  long  and  silent  even 
ings.  Though  she  would  have  given  anything  to  drop 
into  bed  as  soon  as  the  babies  were  undressed,  she 


THE  SHADOW  299 

forced  herself  to  sit  up  without  yawning  until  Oliver 
turned  out  the  lights,  bolted  the  door,  and  remarked 
irritably  that  she  ought  to  have  been  asleep  hours  ago. 

"You  aren't  used  to  sitting  up  so  late,  Virginia;  it 
makes  you  dark  under  the  eyes,"  he  said  one  June  night 
as  he  came  in  from  the  porch  where  he  had  been  to  look 
up  at  the  stars. 

"But  I  can't  go  to  bed  until  you  do,  darling.  I  get 
so  worried  about  you,"  she  answered. 

"Why  in  heaven's  name,  should  you  worry  about 
me?  I  am  all  right,"  he  responded  crossly. 

She  saw  her  mistake,  and  with  her  unvarying  sweet 
ness,  set  out  to  rectify  it. 

"Of  course,  I  know  you  are  —  but  we  have  so  little 
time  together  that  I  don't  want  to  miss  the  evenings." 

"So  little!"  he  echoed,  not  unkindly,  but  in  simple 
astonishment. 

"I  mean  the  children  sit  up  late  now,  and  of  course 
we  can't  talk  while  they  are  playing  in  the  room." 

"Don't  you  think  you  might  get  them  to  bed  earlier? 
They  are  becoming  rather  a  nuisance,  aren't  they?" 

He  said  it  kindly  enough,  yet  tears  rushed  to  her 
eyes  as  she  looked  at  him.  It  was  impossible  for  her 
to  conceive  of  any  mood  in  which  the  children  would 
become  "rather  a  nuisance"  to  her,  and  the  words 
hurt  her  more  than  he  was  ever  to  know.  It  seemed 
the  last  straw  that  she  could  not  bear,  said  her  heart 
as  she  turned  away  from  him.  She  had  borne  the 
extra  work  without  a  complaint;  she  had  pinched  and 
scraped,  if  not  happily,  at  least  with  a  smile;  she  had 
sat  up  while  her  limbs  ached  with  fatigue  and  the  long 
ing  to  be  in  bed  —  and  all  these  things  were  as  nothing 
to  the  tragic  confession  that  the  children  had  become 


300  VIRGINIA 

" rather  a  nuisance."     Of  the  many  trials  she  had  had 
to  endure,  this,  she  told  herself,  was  the  bitterest. 

^Though  her  feet  burned  and  her  muscles  throbbed 
with  fatigue,  she  lay  awake  for  hours,  with  her  eyes 
wide  open  in  the  moonlight.     All  the  small  harassing 
duties  of  the  morrow,   which   usually   swarmed  like 
startled  bees  through  her  brain  at  night,  were  scat 
tered  now  by  this    vague  terror    which  assumed    no 
definite  shape.     The  delicacy  of  Lucy's  chest,  Harry's 
stubborn  refusal  to  learn  to  spell,  and  even  the  harrow 
ing  certainty  that  the   children's  appetites  were   fast 
outstripping    the    frugal    fare    she    provided  -  -  these 
stinging  worries  had  flown  before  a  new  anxiety  which 
was  the  more  poignant,  she  felt,  because  she  could  not 
give  it  a  name.     The  Pendleton  idealism  was  powerless 
to  dispel  this  malign  shadow  which  corresponded  so 
closely  to  that  substance  of  evil  whose  very  existence 
the  Pendleton  idealism  eternally  denied.     To  battle 
with  a  delusion  was  virtually  to  admit  one's  belief  in 
its  actuality,  and  this,  she  reflected  passionately,  lying 
awake  there  in  the  darkness,  was  the  last  thing  she 
was    prepared    at    the    moment    to    do.     Oliver    was 
changed,  and  yet  her  duty  was  plainly  to  fortify  herself 
with    the    consoling    assurance    that,    whatever    hap 
pened,  Oliver  could  never  really  change.     Deep  down 
in  her  that  essential  fibre  of  her  being  which  was  her 
soul  —  which  drew  its  vitality  from  the  racial  struct 
ure  of  which  it  was  a  part,  and  yet  which  distinguished 
and  separated  her  from  every  other  person  and  object 
in  the  universe  —  this  essential  fibre  was  compacted 
of  innumerable  Pendleton  refusals  to  face  the  reality. 
Even  with  Lucy's  chest  and  Harry's  lessons  and  the 
cost   of  food,   she  had   always  felt  a   soothing  con- 


THE  SHADOW  301 

viction  that  by  thinking  hard  enough  about  them 
she  couJd  make  them  every  one  come  out  right  in  the 
morning.  As  a  normal  human  being  in  a  world 
which  was  not  planned  on  altruistic  principles,  it  was 
out  of  the  question  that  she  should  entirely  escape  an 
occasional  hour  of  despondency;  but  with  the  narrow 
outlook  of  women  who  lead  intense  personal  lives,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  her  to  see  anything 
really  wrong  in  the  universe  while  Oliver  and  all  the 
children  were  well.  God  was  in  His  heaven  as  long  as 
the  affairs  of  her  household  worked  together  for  good. 
"It  can't  be  that  he  is  different  —  I  must  have  im 
agined  it,"  she  thought  now,  breathing  softly  lest  she 
should  disturb  the  sleeping  Oliver.  "It  is  natural 
that  he  should  be  worried  about  his  debts,  and  the  fail 
ure  of  the  play  went  very  hard  with  him,  of  course  — 
but  if  he  appears  at  times  to  have  grown  bitter,  it  must 
be  only  that  I  have  come  to  exact  too  much  of  him.  I 
oughtn't  to  expect  him  to  take  the  same  interest  in  the 
children  that  I  do  - 

Then,  rising  softly  on  her  elbow,  she  smoothed  the 
sheet  over  Jenny's  dimpled  little  body,  and  bent  her 
ear  downward  to  make  sure  that  the  child  was  breath 
ing  naturally  in  her  sleep.  In  spite  of  her  depression 
that  rosy  face  framed  in  hair  like  spun  yellow  silk, 
aroused  in  her  a  feeling  of  ecstasy.  Whenever  she 
looked  at  one  of  her  children  —  at  her  youngest  child 
especially  —  her  maternal  passion  seemed  to  turn  to 
flame  in  her  blood.  Even  first  love  had  not  been  so 
exquisitely  satisfying,  so  interwoven  of  all  imagin 
able  secret  meanings  of  bliss.  Jenny's  thumb  was  in 
her  mouth,  and  removing  it  gently,  Virginia  bent  lower 
and  laid  her  hot  cheek  on  the  soft  shining  curls.  Some 


302  VIRGINIA 

vital  power,  an  emanation  from  that  single  principle  of 
Love  which  ruled  her  life,  passed  from  the  breath  of 
the  sleeping  child  into  her  body.  Peace  descended 
upon  her,  swift  and  merciful  like  sleep,  and  turning 
on  her  side,  she  lay  with  her  hand  on  Jenny's  crib,  as 
though  in  clinging  to  her  child  she  clung  to  all  that  was 
most  worth  while  in  the  universe. 

The  next  night  Oliver  telephoned  from  the  Tread- 
wells'  that  he  would  not  be  home  to  supper,  and  when 
he  came  in  at  eleven  o'clock,  he  appeared  annoyed  to 
find  her  sitting  up  for  him. 

"You  ought  to  have  gone  to  bed,  Virginia.  You 
look  positively  haggard,"  he  said. 

"  I  wasn't  sleepy.  Mother  came  in  for  a  few  minutes, 
and  we  put  the  children  to  bed.  Jenny  wanted  to  say 
good-night  to  you,  and  she  cried  when  I  told  her  you 
had  gone  out.  I  believe  she  loves  you  better  than  she 
does  anybody  in  the  world,  Oliver." 

He  smiled  with  something  of  the  casual  brilliancy 
which  had  first  captivated  her  imagination.  In  spite 
of  the  melancholy  which  had  clouded  his  charm  of  late, 
he  had  lost  neither  his  glow  of  physical  well-being  nor 
the  look  of  abounding  intellectual  energy  which  dis 
tinguished  him  from  all  other  men  whom  she  knew.  It 
was  this  intellectual  energy,  she  sometimes  thought, 
which  purified  his  character  of  that  vein  of  earthiness 
which  she  had  looked  upon  as  the  natural,  and  therefore 
the  pardonable,  attribute  of  masculine  human  nature. 

"If  she  keeps  her  looks,  she'll  leave  her  mother  be 
hind  some  day,"  he  answered.  "You  need  a  new  dress, 
Jinny.  I  hate  that  old  waist  and  skirt.  Why  don't 
you  wear  the  swishy  blue  silk  I  always  liked  on  you?" 

"I  made  it  over  for  Lucy,  dear.     She  had  to  have  a 


THE  SHADOW  303 

dress  to  wear  to  Lily  Carrington's  birthday  party,  and  I 
didn't  want  to  buy  one.  It  looks  ever  so  nice  on  her." 

"Doubtless,  but  I  like  it  better  on  you." 

"It  doesn't  matter  what  I  wear,  but  Lucy  is  so  fond 
of  pretty  things,  and  children  dress  more  now  than 
they  used  to  do.  What  did  Susan  have  to  say?" 

He  had  turned  to  bolt  the  front  door,  and  while  his 
back  was  towards  her,  she  raised  her  hand  to  smother  a 
yawn.  All  day  she  had  been  on  her  feet,  except  for  the 
two  hours  when  she  had  worked  at  her  sewing-machine, 
while  Harry  and  Jenny  were  taking  their  morning  nap. 
She  had  not  had  time  to  change  her  dress  until  after 
supper,  and  she  had  felt  so  tired  then  that  it  had  not 
seemed  worth  while  to  do  so.  There  was,  in  fact, 
nothing  to  change  to,  since  she  had  made  over  the  blue 
silk,  except  an  old  black  organdie,  cut  square  in  the 
neck,  which  she  had  worn  in  the  months  before  Jenny's 
birth.  As  a  girl  she  had  loved  pretty  clothes;  but 
there  were  so  many  other  things  to  think  about  now, 
and  from  the  day  that  her  first  child  had  come  to  her 
it  had  seemed  to  matter  less  and  less  what  she  wore  or 
how  she  appeared.  Nothing  had  really  counted  in  life 
except  the  supreme  privilege  of  giving  herself,  body  and 
soul,  in  the  service  of  love.  All  that  she  was  —  all 
that  she  had  —  belonged  to  Oliver  and  to  his  children, 
so  what  difference  could  it  make  to  them,  since  she 
gave  herself  so  completely,  whether  she  wore  new 
clothes  or  old? 

When  he  turned  to  her,  she  had  smothered  the  yawn, 
and  was  smiling.  "Is  Aunt  Belinda  just  the  same?"  she 
asked,  for  he  had  not  answered  her  question  about  Susan. 

"To  tell  the  truth,  I  forgot  to  ask,"  he  replied,  with 
a  laugh.  "Susan  seemed  very  cheerful,  and  John 


304  VIRGINIA 

Henry  was  there,  of  course.  It  wouldn't  surprise  me 
to  hear  any  day  that  they  are  to  be  married.  By  the  way, 
Virginia,  why  did  you  never  tell  me  what  a  good  rider 
you  are?  Abby  Goode  says  you  would  have  been  a  better 
horsewoman  than  she  is  if  you  hadn't  given  up  riding." 
"Why,  I  haven't  been  in  the  saddle  for  years.  I 
stopped  when  we  had  to  sell  my  horse  Bess,  and  that 
was  before  you  came  back  to  Dinwiddie.  How  did 
Abby  happen  to  be  there?" 

"She  stopped  to  see  Susan  about  something,  and 
then  we  got  to  talking  — the  bunch  of  us.  John 
Henry  asked  me  to  exercise  his  horse  for  him  when  he 
doesn't  go.  I  rather  hope  I'll  get  a  chance  to  go  fox 
hunting  in  the  autumn.  Abby  was  talking  about  it." 

"Has  she  changed  much?  I  haven't  seen  her  for 
years.  She  is  hardly  ever  in  Dinwiddie." 

"Well,  she's  fatter,  but  it's  becoming  to  her.  It 
makes  her  look  softer.  She's  a  bit  coarse,  but  she 
tells  a  capital  story.  I  always  liked  Abby." 

"Yes,  I  always  liked  Abby,  too,"  answered  Virginia, 
and  it  was  on  the  tip  of  her  tongue  to  add  that  Abby 
had  always  liked  Oliver.  "If  he  hadn't  seen  me,  per 
haps  he  might  have  married  her,"  she  thought,  and  the 
remote  possibility  of  such  bliss  for  poor  defrauded 
Abby  filled  her  with  an  incredible  tenderness.  She 
would  never  have  believed  that  bouncing,  boisterous 
Abby  Goode  could  have  aroused  in  her  so  poignant  a 
sympathy. 

He  appeared  so  much  more  cheerful  than  she  had 
seen  him  since  his  disastrous  trip  to  New  York,  that, 
moved  by  an  unselfish  impulse  of  gratitude  towards  the 
cause  of  it,  she  put  out  her  hand  to  him,  while  he  raised 
his  arm  to  extinguish  the  light. 


THE  SHADOW  305 

"I  am  so  glad  about  the  horse,  dear,"  she  said.  "It 
will  be  nice  for  you  to  go  sometimes  with  Abby." 

"Why  couldn't  you  come  too,  Jinny?" 

"Oh,  I  shouldn't  have  time  —  and,  besides,  I  gave  it 
up  long  ago.  I  don't  think  a  mother  has  any  business 
on  horseback." 

"All  the  same  I  wish  you  wouldn't  let  yourself  go  to 
pieces.  What  have  you  done  to  your  hands?  They 
used  to  be  so  pretty." 

She  drew  them  hastily  away,  while  the  tears  rose 
in  a  mist  to  her  eyes.  It  was  like  a  man  —  it  was 
especially  like  Oliver  —  to  imagine  that  she  could  clean 
up  half  a  house  and  take  charge  of  three  children,  yet 
keep  her  hands  as  white  and  soft  as  they  had  been 
when  she  was  a  girl  and  did  nothing  except  wait  for  a 
lover.  In  a  flash  of  memory,  she  saw  the  reddened 
and  knotted  hands  of  her  mother,  and  then  a  procession 
of  hands  belonging  to  all  the  mothers  of  her  race  that 
had  gone  before  her.  Were  her  own  but  a  single  pair 
in  that  chain  of  pathetic  hands  that  had  worked  in  the 
exacting  service  of  Love? 

"It  is  so  hard  to  keep  them  nice,"  she  said;  but 
her  heart  cried,  "What  do  my  hands  matter  when 
it  is  for  your  sake  that  I  have  spoiled  them?"  With 
her  natural  tendency  to  undervalue  the  physical 
pleasures  of  life,  she  had  looked  upon  her  beauty  as 
a  passing  bloom  which  would  attract  her  lover  to  the 
veiled  wonders  of  her  spirit.  Fleshly  beauty  as  an  end 
in  itself  would  have  appeared  to  her  as  immoral  a  cult 
as  the  wilful  pursuit  of  a  wandering  desire  in  the  male. 

"I  never  noticed  until  to-night  what  pretty  hands 
Abby  has,"  he  said,  innocently  enough,  as  he  turned 
off  the  gas. 


306  VIRGINIA 

A  strange  sensation  —  something  which  was  so  dif 
ferent  from  anything  she  had  ever  felt  before  that 
she  could  not  give  it  a  name  —  pierced  her  heart  like 
an  arrow.  Then  it  fled  as  suddenly  as  it  had  come, 
and  left  her  at  ease  with  the  thought:  "Abby  has  had 
nothing  to  hurt  her  hands.  Why  shouldn't  they  be 
pretty?"  But  not  for  Abby's  hands  would  she  have 
given  up  a  single  hour  when  she  had  washed  Jenny's 
little  flannels  or  dug  enchanted  garden  beds  with 
Harry's  miniature  trowel. 

"She  used  to  have  a  beautiful  figure,"  she  said 
with  perfect  sincerity. 

"Well,  she's  got  it  still,  though  she's  a  trifle  too 
large  for  my  taste.  You  can't  help  liking  her  —  she's 
such  jolly  good  company,  but,  somehow,  she  doesn't 
seem  womanly.  She's  too  fond  of  sport  and  all  that 
sort  of  thing." 

His  ideal  woman  still  corresponded  to  the  type 
which  he  had  chosen  for  his  mate;  for  true  womanliness 
was  inseparably  associated  in  his  mind  with  those 
qualities  which  had  awakened  for  generations  the 
impulse  of  sexual  selection  in  the  men  of  his  race. 
Though  he  enjoyed  Abby,  he  refused  stubbornly  to 
admire  her,  since  evolution,  which  moves  rapidly  in  the 
development  of  the  social  activities,  had  left  his 
imagination  still  sacredly  cherishing  the  convention  of 
the  jungle  in  the  matter  of  sex.  He  saw  woman  as 
dependent  upon  man  for  the  very  integrity  of  her 
being,  and  beyond  the  divine  fact  of  this  dependency, 
he  did  not  see  her  at  all.  But  there  was  nothing 
sardonic  in  his  point  of  view,  which  had  become 
considerably  strengthened  by  his  marriage  to  Virginia, 
who  shared  it.  It  was  one  of  those  mental  attitudes, 


THE  SHADOW  307 

indeed,  which,  in  the  days  of  loose  thinking  and  of 
hazy  generalizations,  might  have  proved  its  divine 
descent  by  its  universality.  Oliver,  his  Uncle  Cyrus, 
the  rector,  and  honest  John  Henry,  however  they  may 
have  differed  in  their  views  of  the  universe  or  of  each 
other,  were  one  at  least  in  accepting  the  historical 
dogma  of  the  supplementary  being  of  woman. 

And  yet,  so  strange  is  life,  so  inexplicable  are  its 
contradictions,  there  were  times  when  Oliver's  ideal 
appeared  almost  to  betray  him,  and  the  intellectual 
limitations  of  Virginia  bored  rather  than  delighted 
him.  Habit,  which  is  a  sedative  to  a  phlegmatic 
nature,  acts  not  infrequently  as  a  positive  irritant 
upon  the  temperament  of  the  artist;  and  since  he 
had  turned  from  his  work  in  a  passion  of  disgust 
at  the  dramatic  obtuseness  of  his  generation,  he  had 
felt  more  than  ever  the  need  of  some  intellectual 
outlet  for  the  torrent  of  his  imagination.  As  a  wife, 
Virginia  was  perfect;  as  a  mental  companion,  she 
barely  existed  at  all.  She  was,  he  had  come  to  recog 
nize,  profoundly  indifferent  to  the  actual  world.  Her 
universe  was  a  fiction  except  the  part  of  it  that  con 
cerned  him  or  the  children.  He  had  never  forgotten 
that  he  had  read  his  play  to  her  one  night  shortly 
after  Jenny's  birth,  and  she  had  leaned  forward  with 
her  chin  on  her  palm  and  a  look  in  her  face  as  if  she 
were  listening  for  a  cry  which  never  came  from  the 
nursery.  Her  praise  had  had  the  sound  of  being 
recited  by  rote,  and  had  aroused  in  him  a  sense  of 
exasperation  which  returned  even  now  whenever  she 
mentioned  his  work.  In  the  days  of  his  courtship 
the  memory  of  her  simplicities  clung  like  an  exquisite 
bouquet  to  the  intoxicating  image  of  her;  but  in  eight 


308  VIRGINIA 

years  of  daily  intimacy  the  flavour  and  the  perfume 
of  ^mere  innocence  had  evaporated.  The  quality 
which  had  first  charmed  him  was,  perhaps,  the  first 
of  which  he  had  grown  weary.  He  still  loved  Virginia, 
but  he  had  ceased  to  talk  to  her.  "If  you  go  into  the 
refrigerator,  ^  Oliver,  don't  upset  Jenny's  bottle  of 
milk,"  she  said,  looking  after  him  as  he  turned  towards 
the  dining-room. 

Her  foot  was  already  on  the  bottom  step  of  the 
staircase,  for  she  had  heard,  or  imagined  that  she  had 
heard,  a  sound  from  the  nursery,  and  she  was  impa 
tient  to  see  if  one  of  the  children  had  awakened  and 
got  out  of  bed.  All  the  evening,  while  she  had  changed 
the  skin-tight  sleeves  of  the  eighties  to  the  balloon 
ones  of  the  nineties  in  an  old  waist  which  she  had  had 
before  her  marriage  and  had  never  worn  because  it 
was  unbecoming,  her  thoughts  had  been  of  Harry, 
whom  she  had  punished  for  some  act  of  flagrant 
rebellion  during  the  afternoon.  Now  she  was  eager 
to  comfort  him  if  he  was  awake  and  unhappy,  or 
merely  to  cuddle  and  kiss  him  if  he  was  fast  asleep 
in  his  bed. 

At  the  top  of  the  staircase  she  saw  the  lowered 
lamp  in  the  nursery,  and  beside  it  stood  Harry  in  his 
little  nightgown,  with  a  toy  ship  in  his  arms. 

"Mamma,  I'm  tired  of  bed  and  I  want  to  play." 
"S — sush,  darling,  you  will  wake  Jenny.     It  isn't 
day  yet.     You  must  go  back  to  bed." 
"But  I'm  tired  of  bed." 
"You  won't  be  after  I  tuck  you  in." 
"Will  you  sit  by  me  and  tell  me  a  story?" 
"Yes,  darling,  I'll  tell  you  a  story  if  you'll  promise 
not  to  talk." 


THE  SHADOW  309 

Her  eyes  were  heavy  with  sleep,  and  her  limbs 
trembled  from  the  exhaustion  of  the  long  June  day; 
but  she  remembered  the  punishment  of  the  afternoon, 
and  as  she  looked  at  him  her  heart  seemed  melting 
with  tenderness. 

"And  you'll  promise  not  to  go  away  until  I'm  fast 
asleep?  —  you'll  promise,  mamma?" 

"I'll  promise,  precious.  No,  you  mustn't  take  your 
ship  to  bed  with  you.  That's  a  darling.' 

Then,  as  Oliver  was  heard  coming  softly  up  the  stairs 
for  fear  of  arousing  the  children,  she  caught  Harry's 
moist  hand  in  hers  and  stole  with  him  into  the  nursery. 

To  Virginia  in  the  long  torrid  days  of  that  summer 
there  seemed  time  for  neither  anxiety  nor  disappoint 
ment.  Every  minute  of  her  eighteen  waking  hours 
was  spent  in  keeping  the  children  washed,  dressed, 
and  good-humoured.  She  thought  of  herself  so  little 
that  it  never  occurred  to  her  to  reflect  whether  she  was 
happy  or  unhappy  —  hardly,  even,  whether  she  was 
awake  or  asleep.  Twice  a  week  John  Henry's  horse 
carried  Oliver  for  a  ride  with  Abby  and  Susan,  and 
on  these  evenings  he  stayed  so  late  that  Virginia 
ceased  presently  even  to  make  a  pretence  of  waiting 
supper.  Several  times,  on  September  afternoons, 
when  the  country  burned  with  an  illusive  radiance  as 
if  it  were  seen  through  a  mirage,  she  put  on  her  old 
riding-habit,  which  she  had  hunted  up  in  the  attic 
at  the  rectory,  and  mounting  one  of  Abby's  horses, 
started  to  accompany  them;  but  her  conscience  re 
proached  her  so  bitterly  at  the  thought  that  she  was 
seeking  pleasure  away  from  the  children,  that  she 
hurried  homeward  across  the  fields  before  the  others 
were  ready  to  turn.  As  with  most  women  who  are  born 


310  VIRGINIA 

for  motherhood,  that  supreme  fact  had  not  only 
absorbed  the  emotional  energy  of  her  girlhood,  but 
had  consumed  in  its  ecstatic  flame  even  her  ordinary 
capacities  for  enjoyment.  While  fatherhood  left  Oliver 
still  a  prey  to  dreams  and  disappointments,  the  more 
exclusive  maternal  passion  rendered  Virginia  pro 
foundly  indifferent  to  every  aspect  of  life  except  the 
intimate  personal  aspect  of  her  marriage.  She  couldn't 
be  happy  —  she  couldn't  even  be  at  ease  —  while  she 
remembered  that  the  children  were  left  to  the  honest, 
yet  hardly  tender,  mercies  of  Marthy. 

"I  shall  never  go  again,"  she  thought,  as  she  slipped 
from  her  saddle  at  the  gate,  and,  catching  up  her  long 
riding-skirt,  ran  up  the  short  walk  to  the  steps.  "I 
must  be  getting  old.  Something  has  gone  out  of  me." 

And  there  was  no  regret  in  her  heart  for  this  something 
which  had  fled  out  of  her  life,  for  the  flashing  desires 
and  the  old  breathless  pleasures  of  youth  which  she 
had  lost.  For  a  month  this  passive  joy  lasted  —  the 
joy  of  one  whose  days  are  full  and  whose  every  activity 
is  in  useful  service.  Then  there  came  an  October 
afternoon  which  she  never  forgot  because  it  burned 
across  her  life  like  a  prairie  fire  and  left  a  scarred 
track  of  memory  behind  it.  It  had  been  a  windless 
day,  filled  with  glittering  blue  lights  that  darted  like 
birds  down  the  long  ash-coloured  roads,  and  spun 
with  a  golden  web  of  air  which  made  the  fields  and 
trees  appear  as  thin  and  as  unsubstantial  as  dreams. 
The  children  were  with  Marthy  in  the  park,  and 
Virginia,  attired  in  the  old  waist  with  the  new  sleeves, 
was  leaning  on  the  front  gate  watching  the  slow  fall 
of  the  leaves  from  the  gnarled  mulberry  tree  at  the 
corner,  when  Mrs.  Pendleton  appeared  on  the  opposite 


THE  SHADOW  311 

side  of  the  street  and  crossed  the  cobblestones  of  the 
road  with  her  black  alpaca  skirt  trailing  behind  her. 

"I  wonder  why  in  the  world  mother  doesn't  hold 
up  her  skirt?"  thought  Virginia,  swinging  back  the 
little  wooden  gate  while  she  waited.  "Mother,  you 
are  letting  your  train  get  all  covered  with  dust!"  she 
called,  as  soon  as  Mrs.  Pendleton  came  near  enough  to 
catch  her  half-whispered  warning. 

Reaching  down  indifferently,  the  older  woman 
caught  up  a  handful  of  her  skirt  and  left  the  rest  to 
follow  ignominiously  in  the  dust.  From  the  careless 
ness  of  the  gesture,  Virginia  saw  art  once  that  her 
mother's  mind  was  occupied  by  one  of  those  rare 
states  of  excitement  or  of  distress  when  even  the  preser 
vation  of  her  clothes  had  sunk  to  a  matter  of  secondary 
importance.  When  the  small  economies  were  banished 
from  Mrs.  Pendleton's  consciousness,  matters  had  as 
sumed  indeed  a  serious  aspect. 

"Why,  mother,  what  on  earth  has  happened?" 
asked  Virginia,  hurrying  toward  her. 

"Let  me  come  in  and  speak  to  you,  Jinny.  I  mean 
inside  the  house.  One  can  never  be  sure  that  some  of 
the  neighbours  aren't  listening,"  she  said  in  a  whisper. 

Hurrying  past  her  daughter,  she  went  into  the 
hall,  and,  then  turning,  faced  her  with  her  hand  on 
the  doorknob.  In  the  dim  light  of  the  hall  her  face 
showed  white  and  drawn,  like  the  face  of  a  person 
who  has  been  suddenly  stricken  with  illness.  "Jinny, 
I've  just  had  a  visit  from  Mrs.  Carrington  —  you 
know  what  a  gossip  she  is  —  but  I  think  I  ought  to 
tell  you  that  she  says  people  are  talking  about  Oliver's 
riding  so  much  with  Abby." 

A  pain  as  sharp  as  if  the  teeth  of  a  beast  had  fastened 


312  VIRGINIA 

in  her  heart,  pierced  Virginia  while  she  stood  there, 
barring  the  door  with  her  hands.  Her  peace,  which 
had  seemed  indestructible  a  moment  ago,  was  shat 
tered  by  a  sensation  of  violent  anger  —  not  against 
Abby,  not  against  Oliver,  not  even  against  the  gossiping 
old  women  of  Dinwiddie  —  but  against  her  own  blind 
ness,  her  own  inconceivable  folly!  At  the  moment  the 
civilization  of  centuries  was  stripped  from  her,  and 
she  was  as  simple  and  as  primitive  as  a  female  of  the 
jungle.  On  the  surface  she  was  still  calm,  but  to  her 
own  soul  she  felt  that  she  presented  the  appalling 
spectacle  of  a  normal  woman  turned  fury.  It  was 
one  of  those  instants  that  are  so  unexpected,  so  entirely 
unnatural  and  out  of  harmony  with  the  rest  of  life, 
that  they  obliterate  the  boundaries  of  character  which 
separate  the  life  of  the  individual  from  the  ancient  root 
of  the  race.  Not  Virginia,  but  the  primeval  woman 
in  her  blood,  shrieked  out  in  protest  as  she  saw  her 
hold  on  her  mate  threatened.  The  destruction  of  the 
universe,  as  long  as  it  left  her  house  standing  in  its  bit 
of  ground,  would  have  overwhelmed  her  less  utterly. 

"But  what  on  earth  can  they  say,  mother?  It  was 
all  my  fault.  I  made  him  go.  He  never  lifted  his 
finger  for  Abby." 

"I  know,  darling,  I  know.  Of  course,  Oliver  is  not 
to  blame,  but  people  will  talk,  and  I  think  Abby 
ought  to  have  known  better." 

For  an  instant  only  Virginia  hesitated.  Then  some 
thing  stronger  than  the  primitive  female  in  her  blood  — 
the  spirit  of  a  lady  —  spoke  through  her  lips. 

"I  don't  believe  Abby  was  to  blame,  either,"  she  said. 

"But  women  ought  to  know  better,  Jinny,  and 
Abby  is  nearly  thirty." 


THE  SHADOW  313 

"She  always  wanted  me  to  go,  mother.  I  don't 
believe  she  thought  for  a  minute  that  she  was  doing 
anything  wrong.  Abby  is  a  little  coarse,  but  she's 
perfectly  good.  Nobody  will  make  me  think  other 


wise." 


"Well,  it  can't  go  on,  dear.  You  must  stop  Oliver's 
riding  with  her.  And  Mrs.  Carrington  says  she  hears 
that  he  is  going  to  Atlantic  City  with  them  in  General 
Goode's  private  car  on  Thursday." 

"Abby  asked  me,  too,  but  of  course  I  couldn't  leave 
the  children." 

"Of  course  not.  Oliver  must  give  it  up,  too.  Oh, 
Jinny,  a  scandal,  even  where  one  is  innocent,  is  so 
terrible.  A  woman  —  a  true  woman  —  would  endure 
death  rather  than  be  talked  about.  I  remember 
your  cousin  Jane  Pendleton  made  an  unhappy  mar 
riage,  and  her  husband  used  to  get  drunk  and  beat 
her  and  even  carry  on  dreadfully  with  the  coloured 
servants  —  but  she  said  that  was  better  than  the 
disgrace  of  a  separation." 

"But  all  that  has  nothing  to  do  with  me,  mother. 
Oliver  is  an  angel,  and  this  is  every  bit  my  fault,  not 
Abby's."  The  violence  in  her  soul  had  passed,  and 
she  felt  suddenly  calm. 

"Of  course,  darling,  of  course.  Now  that  you  see 
what  it  has  led  to,  you  can  stop  it  immediately." 

They  were  so  alike  as  they  stood  there  facing  each 
other,  mother  and  daughter,  that  they  might  have 
represented  different  periods  of  the  same  life  —  youth 
and  age  meeting  together.  Both  were  perfect  products 
of  that  social  order  whose  crowning  grace  and  glory 
they  were.  Both  were  creatures  trained  to  feel  rather 
than  think,  whose  very  goodness  was  the  result  not 


314  VIRGINIA 

of  reason,  but  of  emotion.  And,  above  all,  both  were 
gentlewomen  to  the  innermost  cores  of  their  natures. 
Passion  could  not  banish  for  long  that  exquisite  for 
bearance  which  generations  had  developed  from  a 
necessity  into  an  art. 

"I  can't  stop  his  going  with  her,  because  that 
would  make  people  think  I  believed  the  things  they 
say  — but  I  can  go,  too,  mother,  and  I  will.  I'll 
borrow  Susan's  horse  and  go  fox-hunting  with  them 
to-morrow." 

Once  again,  as  on  the  afternoon  when  she  had 
heard  of  Oliver's  illness  in  New  York,  Mrs.  Pendle- 
ton  realized  that  her  daughter's  strength  was  more 
than  a  match  for  hers  when  the  question  related  to 
Oliver. 

"But  the  children,  dear  —  and  then,  oh,  Jinny, 
you  might  get  hurt." 

To  her  surprise  Jinny  laughed. 

"I  shan't  get  hurt,  mother  —  and  if  I  did " 

She  left  her  sentence  unfinished,  but  in  the  break  there 
was  the  first  note  of  bitterness  that  her  mother  had 
ever  heard  from  her  lips.  Was  it  possible,  after  all, 
that  there  was  "more  in  it"  than  she  had  let  appear 
in  her  words?  Was  it  possible  that  her  passionate 
defence  of  Abby  had  been  but  a  beautiful  pretence? 

"I'll  go  straight  down  to  the  Treadwells'  to  ask 
Susan  for  her  horse,"  she  added  cheerfully,  "and 
you'll  come  over  very  early,  won't  you,  to  stay  with 
the  children?  Oliver  always  starts  before  daybreak." 

"Yes,  darling,  I'll  get  up  at  dawn  and  come  over  — 
but,  Jinny,  promise  me  to  be  careful." 

"Oh,  I'll  be  careful,"  responded  Virginia  lightly,  as 
she  went  out  on  the  porch. 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE   WILL   TO   LIVE 

"IT'S  all  horrid  talk.  There's  not  a  word  of  truth 
in  it,"  she  thought,  true  to  the  Pendleton  point  of 
view,  as  she  turned  into  Old  Street  on  her  way  to  the 
Treadwells'.  Then  the  sound  of  horses'  hoofs  rang 
on  the  cobblestones,  and,  looking  past  the  corner,  she 
saw  Oliver  and  Abby  galloping  under  the  wine- 
coloured  leaves  of  the  oak  tree  at  the  crossing.  His 
face  was  turned  back,  as  if  he  were  looking  over  his 
shoulder  at  the  red  sunset,  and  he  was  laughing  as 
she  had  not  heard  him  laugh  since  that  dreadful 
morning  in  the  bedroom  of  the  New  York  hotel. 
What  a  boy  he  was  still!  As  she  watched  him,  it 
seemed  to  her  that  she  was  old  enough  to  be  his  mother, 
and  the  soreness  in  her  heart  changed  into  an  exquisite 
impulse  of  tenderness.  Then  he  looked  from  the  sun 
set  to  Abby,  and  at  the  glance  of  innocent  pleasure 
that  passed  between  them  a  stab  of  jealousy  entered 
her  heart  like  a  blade.  Before  it  faded,  they  had 
passed  the  corner,  and  were  cantering  wildly  up  Old 
Street  in  the  direction  of  Abby's  home. 

"It  is  my  fault.  I  am  too  settled.  I  am  letting 
my  youth  go,"  she  said,  with  a  passionate  determina 
tion  to  catch  her  girlhood  and  hold  it  fast  before  it 
eluded  her  forever.  "I  am  only  twenty-eight  and  I 
dress  like  a  woman  of  forty."  And  it  seemed  to  her 

315    ' 


316  VIRGINIA 

that  the  one  desirable  thing  in  life  was  this  fleet-winged 
spirit  of  youth,  which  passed  like  a  breath,  leaving 
existence  robbed  of  all  romance  and  beauty.  An  hour 
before  she  had  not  cared,  and  she  would  not  care 
now  if  only  Oliver  could  grow  middle-aged  and  old 
at  the  moment  when  she  did.  Ah,  there  was  the 
tragedy!  All  life  was  for  men,  and  only  a  few  radiant 
years  of  it  were  given  to  women.  Men  were  never  too 
old  to  love,  to  pursue  and  capture  whatever  joy  the 
fugitive  instant  might  hold  for  them.  But  women, 
though  they  were  allowed  only  one  experience  out 
of  the  whole  of  life,  were  asked  to  resign  even  that 
one  at  the  very  minute  when  they  needed  it  most. 
"I  wonder  what  will  become  of  me  when  the  children 
grow  big  enough  to  be  away  all  the  time  as  Oliver 
is,"  she  thought  wistfully.  "I  wish  one  never  grew 
too  old  to  have  babies." 

The  front  door  of  the  Treadwell  house  stood  open, 
and  in  the  hall  Susan  was  arranging  golden-rod  and 
life-ever-lasting  in  a  blue  china  bowl. 

"Of  course,  you  may  have  Belle  to-morrow," 
she  said  in  answer  to  Virginia's  faltering  request. 
"Even  if  I  intended  going,  I'd  be  only  too  glad  to 
lend  her  to  you  —  but  I  can't  leave  mother  anyway. 
She  always  gets  restless  if  I  stay  out  over  an  hour." 

Mrs.  Tread  well's  illness  had  become  one  of  those 
painful  facts  which  people  accept  as  naturally  as  they 
accept  the  theological  dogma  of  damnation.  It  was 
terrible,  when  they  thought  of  it,  but  they  seldom 
thought  of  it,  thereby  securing  tranquillity  of  mind 
in  the  face  of  both  facts  and  dogmas.  Even  Virginia 
had  ceased  to  make  her  first  question  when  she  met 
Susan,  "How  is  your  mother?" 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  317 

"But,  Susan,  you  need  the  exercise.  I  thought 
that  was  why  the  doctor  made  Uncle  Cyrus  get  you  a 
horse." 

"It  was,  but  I  only  go  for  an  hour  in  the  afternoon. 
I  begrudge  every  minute  I  spend  away  from  mother. 
Oh,  Jinny,  she  is  so  pathetic!  It  almost  breaks  my 
heart  to  watch  her." 

"I  know,  dearest,"  said  Virginia;  but  at  the  back 
of  her  brain  she  was  thinking,  "They  looked  so  happy 
together,  yet  he  could  never  really  admire  Abby. 
She  isn't  at  all  the  kind  of  woman  he  likes." 

So  preoccupied  was  she  by  this  problem  of  her  own 
creation,  that  her  voice  had  a  strangely  far  off  sound, 
as  though  it  came  from  a  distance.  "I  wish  I  could 
help  you,  dear  Susan.  If  you  ever  want  me,  day  or 
night,  you  know  you  have  only  to  send  for  me.  I'd 
let  nothing  except  desperate  illness  stand  in  the  way  of 
my  coming." 

It  was  true,  and  because  she  knew  that  it  was  true, 
Susan  stooped  suddenly  and  kissed  her. 

' '  You  are  looking  tired,  Jinny.     What  is  the  matter?" 

"Nothing  except  that  I'm  a  sight  in  this  old  waist. 
I  made  it  over  to  save  buying  one,  but  I  wish  now 
I  hadn't.  It  makes  me  look  so  settled." 

"You  need  some  clothes,  and  you  used  to  be  so 
fond  of  them." 

"That  was  before  the  children  came.  I've  never 
cared  much  since.  It's  just  as  if  life  were  a  completed 
circle,  somehow.  There's  nothing  more  to  expect  or 
to  wait  for  —  you'll  understand  what  I  mean  some 
day,  Susan." 

"I  think  I  do  now.  But  only  women  are  like 
that?  Men  are  different " 


318  VIRGINIA 

It  was  the  classic  phrase  again,  but  on  Susan's  lips  it 
sounded  with  a  new  significance. 

"And  some  women  are  different,  too,"  replied  Vir 
ginia.  "Now  there's  Abby  Goode — Susan,  what  do 
you  honestly  think  of  Abby?" 

There  was  a  wistful  note  in  the  question,  and  around 
her  gentle  blue  eyes  appeared  a  group  of  little  lines, 
brought  out  by  the  nervous  contraction  of  her  fore 
head.  Was  it  the  wan,  smoky  light  of  the  dusk?  — 
Susan  wondered,  or  was  Virginia  really  beginning  to 
break  so  soon? 

"Why,  I  like  Abby.  I  always  did,"  she  answered, 
trying  to  look  as  if  she  did  not  understand  what 
Virginia  had  meant.  "She's  a  little  bit  what  John 
Henry  calls  'loud,'  but  she  has  a  good  heart  and  would 
do  anybody  a  kindness." 

She  had  evaded  answering,  just  as  Virginia  had 
evaded  asking,  the  question  which  both  knew  had 
passed  unuttered  between  them  —  was  Abby  to  be 
trusted  to  keep  inviolate  the  ancient  unwritten  pledge 
of  honourable  womanhood?  Her  character  was  being 
tested  by  the  single  decisive  virtue  exacted  of  her  sex. 

"I  am  glad  you  feel  that  way,"  said  Virginia  in  a 
relieved  manner  after  a  minute,  "because  I  should  hate 
not  to  believe  in  Abby,  and  some  people  don't  under 
stand  her  manner  —  mother  among  them." 

"Oh,  she's  all  right.  I'm  sure  of  it,"  answered 
Susan,  with  heartiness. 

The  wistful  sound  had  passed  out  of  Virginia's 
voice,  while  the  little  lines  faded  as  suddenly  from 
the  corners  of  her  eyes.  She  looked  better  already  — 
only  she  really  ought  not  to  wear  such  dowdy  clothes, 
even  though  she  was  happily  married,  reflected  Susan,  as 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE^  319 

she  watched  her,  a  few  minutes  later,  pass  over  the 
mulberry  leaves,  which  lay,  thick  and  still,  on  the  side 
walk. 

At  the  corner  of    Sycamore    Street  a  shopkeeper 

was  putting  away  his  goods  for  the  night,  and  in  the 

window  Virginia  saw  a  length  of  hyacinth-blue  silk, 

matching  her  eyes,  which  she  had  remotely  coveted 

for  weeks  —  never  expecting  to  possess  it,  yet  never 

quite  reconciling  herself  to  the  thought  that  it  might 

be  worn  by  some  other  woman.     That  length  of  silk 

had  grown  gradually  to  symbolize  the  last  glimmer  of 

girlish  vanity  which  motherhood  had  not  extinguished 

in  her  heart;  and  while  she  looked  at  it  now,  in  her 

new  recklessness  of  mood,  a  temptation,  born  of  the 

perversity  which  rules  human  fate,  came  to  her  to  go 

in  and  buy  it  while  she  was  still  desperate  enough  to 

act  foolishly  and  not  be  afraid.     For  the  first  time  in 

her  life  that  immemorial  spirit  of  adventure  which  lies 

buried  under  the  dead  leaves  of  civilization  at  the 

bottom  of  every  human  heart  —  with  whose  rearisen 

ghost  men  have  moved  mountains  and  ploughed  jungles 

and  charted  illimitable  seas  —  this  imperishable  spirit 

stirred  restlessly  in  its  grave  and  prompted  her  for 

once  to  be  uncalculating  and  to  risk  the  future.     In 

the  flickering  motive  which  guided  her  as  she  entered 

the  shop,  one  would  hardly  have  recognized  the  lusty 

impulse  which  had   sent  her   ancestors   on   splendid 

rambles  of  knight-errantry,  yet  its  hidden  source  was 

the  same.     The  simple  purchase  of  twelve  yards  of 

blue  silk  which  she  had  wanted  for  weeks!    To  an 

outsider  it  would  have  appeared  a  small  matter,  yet 

in  the  act  there  was  the  intrepid  struggle  of  a  personal 

will  to  enforce  its  desire  upon  destiny.     She  would  win 


320  VIRGINIA 

back  the  romance  and  the  beauty  of  living  at  the  cost 
of  prudence,  at  the  cost  of  practical  comforts,  at 
the  cost,  if  need  be,  of  those  ideals  of  womanly  duty 
to  which  the  centuries  had  trained  her!  For  eight 
years  she  had  hardly  thought  of  herself,  for  eight 
years  she  had  worked  and  saved  and  planned  and 
worried,  for  eight  years  she  had  given  her  life  utterly 
and  entirely  to  Oliver  and  the  children  —  and  the 
result  was  that  he  was  happier  with  Abby  —  with 
Abby  whom  he  didn't  even  admire  —  than  he  was 
with  the  wife  whom  he  both  respected  and  loved! 
The  riddle  not  only  puzzled,  it  enraged  her.  Though 
she  was  too  simple  to  seek  a  psychological  answer,  the 
very  fact  that  it  existed  became  an  immediate  power 
in  her  life.  She  forgot  the  lateness  of  the  evening,  she 
forgot  the  children  who  were  anxiously  watching  for  her 
return.  The  forces  of  character,  which  she  had 
always  regarded  as  divinely  fixed  and  established, 
melted  and  became  suddenly  fluid.  She  wasn't  what 
she  had  been  the  minute  before  —  she  wasn't  even, 
she  began  dimly  to  realize,  what  she  would  probably 
be  the  minute  afterwards.  Yet  the  impulse  which 
governed  her  now  was  as  despotic  as  if  it  had  reigned 
in  undisputed  authority  since  the  day  of  her  birth. 
She  knew  that  it  was  a  rebel  against  the  disciplined 
and  moderate  rule  of  her  conscience,  but  this  knowl 
edge,  which  would  have  horrified  her  had  she 
been  in  a  normal  mood,  aroused  in  her  now  merely 
a  breathless  satisfaction  at  the  spectacle  of  her  own 
audacity.  The  natural  Virginia  had  triumphed  for 
an  instant  over  the  Virginia  whom  the  ages  had 
bred. 

At  home  she  found  Oliver  waiting  for  supper,  and 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  321 

the  three  children  in  tears  for  fear  she  should  decide 
to  stay  out  forever. 

"Oh,  mother,  we  thought  you'd  gone  away  never 
to  come  back,"  sobbed  Lucy,  throwing  herself  into 
her  arms,  "and  what  would  little  Jenny  have 
done?" 

"Where  in  the  world  have  you  been,  Virginia?" 
asked  Oliver,  a  trifle  impatiently,  for  he  was  not 
used  to  having  her  absent  from  the  house  at 
meal  hours.  "I  was  afraid  somebody  had  been 
taken  ill  at  the  rectory,  so  I  went  around  to 
inquire." 

"No,  nobody  was  ill,"  answered  Virginia  quietly. 
Though  her  resolution  made  her  tremble  all  over,  it  did 
not  occur  to  her  for  an  instant  that  even  now  she 
might  recede  from  it.  As  the  rector  had  gone  to  the 
war,  so  she  was  going  now  to  battle  with  Abby.  She 
was  afraid,  but  that  quality  which  had  made  the 
Pendletons  despise  fear  since  the  beginning  of  Din- 
widdie's  history,  which  they  had  helped  to  make, 
enabled  her  to  control  her  quivering  muscles  and  to 
laugh  at  the  reproachful  protests  with  which  the 
children  surrounded  her.  Through  her  mind  there 
shot  the  thought:  "I  have  a  secret  from  Oliver," 
and  she  felt  suddenly  guilty  because  for  the  first  time 
since  her  marriage  she  was  keeping  something  back 
from  him.  Then,  following  this,  there  came  the 
knowledge,  piercing  her  heart,  that  she  must  keep  her 
secret  because  even  if  she  told  him,  he  would  not 
understand.  With  the  casualness  of  a  man's  point 
of  view  towards  an  emotion,  he  would  judge  its  impor 
tance,  she  felt,  chiefly  by  the  power  it  possessed  of 
disturbing  the  course  of  his  life.  Unobservant,  and 


322  VIRGINIA 

ever  ready  to  twist  and  decorate  facts  as  she  was, 
it  had  still  been  impossible  for  her  to  escape  the  truth 
that  men  are  by  nature  incapable  of  a  woman's  char 
acteristic  passion  for  nursing  sentiment.  To  struggle 
to  keep  a  feeling  alive  for  no  better  reason  than  that 
it  was  a  feeling,  would  appear  as  wastefully  extrava 
gant  to  Oliver  as  to  the  unimaginative  majority  of 
his  sex.  Such  pure,  sublime,  uncalculating  folly  be 
longed  to  woman  alone! 

When,  at  last,  supper  was  over  and  the  children 
were  safely  in  bed,  she  came  downstairs  to  Oliver,  who 
was  smoking  a  cigar  over  a  newspaper,  and  asked  care 
lessly  : 

"At  what  time  do  you  start  in  the  morning?" 

"I'd  like  to  be  up  by  five,"  he  replied,  without 
lowering  his  paper.  "We're  to  meet  the  hounds  at 
CroswelPs  store  at  a  quarter  of  six,  so  I'll  have  to  get 
off  by  five  at  the  latest.  I  wanted  my  horse  fresh 
for  to-morrow,  that's  why  I  only  went  a  mile  or  two 
this  afternoon,"  he  added. 

"Susan's  to  lend  me  Belle.  I'm  going  with  you," 
she  said,  after  a  pause  in  which  he  had  begun 
to  read  his  paper  again.  This  habit  of  treating 
her  as  if  she  were  not  present  when  he  wanted 
to  read  or  to  work,  was,  she  remembered,  one  of 
the  things  she  had  insisted  upon  in  the  beginning  of 
her  marriage. 

"By  Jove!"  he  exclaimed,  and  the  paper  dropped 
from  his  hands.  "I'm  jolly  glad,  but  what  will  you 
do  about  the  children?" 

"Mother  is  coming  to  look  after  them.  I'll  be  back 
in  time  to  hear  Harry's  lessons,  I  suppose." 

"Why,  of  course;  but,  look  here,  you'll  be  awfully 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  323 

sore.  You  haven't  ridden  after  the  hounds  since  I 
knew  you.  You  might  even  get  a  fall." 

"I  used  to  go,  though,  a  great  deal  —  and  it  won't 
hurt  me  to  be  stiff  for  a  few  days.  Besides,  I  want 
to  take  up  hunting  again." 

Her  motive  was  beyond  him  —  perhaps  because  of 
her  nearness,  which  prevented  his  getting  the  proper 
perspective  of  vision.  For  all  his  keenness  of  insight, 
he  failed  utterly  to  see  into  the  mysterious  mind  of 
his  wife.  He  could  not  penetrate  that  subtle  interplay 
of  traditional  virtues  and  discover  that  she  was  in 
the  clutch  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  savage  of 
the  passions. 

"Then  you'd  better  go  to  bed  early  and  get  some 
sleep,"  he  said.  "I  suppose  we'll  have  a  cup  of  coffee 
before  starting." 

"I'll  make  it  on  the  oil  stove  while  I  am  dressing. 
Marthy  won't  be  up  then." 

"Well,  I'll  come  upstairs  in  ten  mintues,"  he  replied, 
taking  up  his  paper  again.  "I  only  want  to  finish 
this  article." 

In  the  morning  when  she  opened  the  old  green 
shutters  and  looked  out  of  the  window,  the  horses, 
having  been  saddled  by  candlelight,  were  standing 
under  the  mulberry  tree  at  the  gate.  Eight  years  ago, 
in  her  girlhood,  she  would  have  awakened  in  a  delicious 
excitement  on  the  morning  of  a  fox-hunt,  and  have 
dressed  as  eagerly  as  if  she  were  going  to  a  ball;  but 
to-day,  while  she  lit  the  oil-stove  in  the  hall  room  and 
put  on  the  kettle  of  water,  she  was  supported  not  by 
the  hope  of  pleasure,  but  by  a  dull,  an  almost  indefin 
able  sensation  of  dread.  The  instinct  of  woman  to 
adjust  her  personality  to  the  changing  ideals  of  the 


324  VIRGINIA 

man  she  loves  —  this  instinct  older  than  civilization, 
rooted  in  tragedy,  and  existing  by  right  of  an  uncon 
querable  necessity  —  rose  superior  at  the  moment  to 
that  more  stable  maternal  passion  with  which  it  has 
conflicted  since  the  beginning  of  motherhood.  While 
she  put  on  her  riding-habit  and  tied  up  the  plait  of 
her  hair,  the  one  thought  in  Virginia's  mind  was  that 
she  must  be,  at  all  costs,  the  kind  of  woman  that  Oliver 
wanted. 

A  little  later,  when  they  set  out  under  the  mulberry 
trees,  she  glanced  at  him  wistfully,  as  though  she 
wanted  him  to  praise  the  way  she  looked  in  the  saddle. 
But  his  eyes  were  on  the  end  of  the  street,  where  a 
little  company  of  riders  awaited  them,  and  before 
she  could  ask  a  question,  Abby's  high  voice  was  heard 
exclaiming  pleasantly  upon  her  presence.  Not  a  par 
ticularly  imposing  figure,  because  of  her  rather  short 
legs,  when  she  was  on  the  ground,  it  was  impossible 
for  Virginia  to  deny  that  Abby  was  amazingly  hand 
some  on  horseback.  Plump,  dark,  with  a  superb 
bosom,  and  a  colour  in  her  cheeks  like  autumnal 
berries,  she  had  never  appeared  to  better  advantage 
than  she  did,  sitting  on  her  spirited  bay  mare  under 
an  arch  of  scarlet  leaves  which  curved  over  her  head. 
Turning  at  their  approach,  she  started  at  a  brisk 
canter  up  the  road,  and  as  Virginia  followed  her,  the 
sound  of  the  horn  floated,  now  loud,  now  faint,  out 
of  the  pale  mist  that  spun  fanciful  silken  webs  over 
the  trees  and  bushes. 

"Remember  to  look  out  for  the  creeks.  That's 
where  the  danger  comes,"  said  Oliver,  riding  close  to 
her,  and  he  added  nervously,  "Don't  try  to  keep  up 
with  Abby." 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  325 

Ahead  of  them  stretched  a  deserted  Virginia  road, 
with  its  look  of  brooding  loneliness,  as  if  it  had  waited 
patiently  through  the  centuries  for  a  civilization  which 
had  never  come;  and  on  the  right  of  it,  beyond  a 
waste  of  scarlet  sumach  and  sassafras  and  a  wind 
ing  creek  screened  in  elder  bushes,  the  dawn  was 
breaking  slowly  under  a  single  golden-edged  cloud. 
Somebody  on  Virginia's  left  —  a  large,  raw-boned, 
passionate  huntsman,  in  an  old  plum-coloured  over 
coat  with  a  velvet  collar  —  was  complaining  loudly 
that  they  had  started  too  late  and  the  fox  would  have 
gone  to  his  lair  before  they  reached  the  main  party. 
Except  for  an  oath,  which  he  rapped  out  by  way  of 
an  emphasis  not  intended  for  the  ladies,  he  might 
have  been  conducting  a  religious  revival,  so  solemnly 
energetic,  so  deeply  moved,  was  his  manner.  The 
hunt,  which  observed  naturally  the  characteristics 
of  a  society  that  was  ardently  individualistic  even  in 
its  sports,  was  one  of  those  informal,  "go-as-you-please" 
affairs  in  which  the  supreme  joy  of  killing  is  not 
hampered  by  tedious  regulations  or  unnecessary  re 
strictions.  The  chief  thing  was  to  get  a  run  —  to  start 
a  rare  red  fox,  if  luck  was  good,  because  he  was  supposed 
to  run  straight  by  nature  and  not  to  move  in  circles 
after  the  inconsiderate  manner  of  the  commoner  grey 
sort.  But  Providence,  being  inattentive  to  the  needs 
of  hunters  hi  the  neighbourhood  of  Dinwiddie,  had 
decreed  that  the  red  fox  should  live  there  mainly  in  the 
vivid  annals  of  old  sportsmen. 

"A  grey  fox  with  red  ears.  The  best  run  I  ever 
had.  Tried  to  get  in  the  crotch  of  a  hickory  tree  at 
the  end.  Was  so  exhausted  he  couldn't  stir  a  foot 
when  the  hounds  got  him."  While  they  waited  at  the 


326  VIRGINIA 

crossroads  before  a  little  country  store,  where  the 
pack  of  hounds,  lean,  cringing,  habitually  hungry 
creatures,  started  from  beneath  an  old  field  pine  on 
the  right,  Virginia  heard  the  broken  phrases  blown  on 
the  wind,  which  carried  the  joyous  notes  of  the  horn 
over  the  meadows.  The  casual  cruelty  of  the  words 
awoke  no  protest  in  her  mind,  because  it  was  a  cruelty 
to  which  she  was  accustomed.  If  the  sport  had  been 
unknown  in  Dinwiddie,  and  she  had  read  of  it  as  the 
peculiar  activity  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  British 
Islands,  she  would  probably  have  condemned  it  as 
needlessly  brutal  and  degrading.  But  with  that 
universal  faculty  of  the  human  mind  to  adjust  its 
morality  to  fit  its  inherited  physical  habits,  she  regarded 
"the  rights  of  the  fox"  to-day  with  something  of  the 
humorous  scorn  of  sentimental  rubbish  with  which 
her  gentler  grandmother  had  once  regarded  "the 
rights  of  the  slave."  For  centuries  the  hunt  had  been 
one  of  the  cherished  customs  of  Dinwiddians;  and 
though  she  could  not  bear  to  see  a  fly  caught  in  a  web, 
it  would  never  have  occurred  to  her  to  question  the 
humanity  of  any  sport  in  which  her  ancestors  had 
delighted.  In  her  girlhood  the  sound  of  the  horn 
had  called  to  her  blood  with  all  the  intoxicating  asso 
ciations  it  awoke  in  the  raw-boned,  energetic  rider 
in  the  plum-coloured  coat  —  but  to-day  both  the 
horn  and  the  familiar  landscape  around  her  had 
grown  strange  and  unhomelike.  For  the  first  time 
since  her  birth  she  and  the  country  were  out  of 
harmony. 

In  the  midst  of  the  hounds,  in  the  centre  of  the  old 
field  on  the  right,  the  huntsman,  who  was  at  the  same 
time  master  and  owner  of  the  dogs,  brandished  a  long 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  327 

raw-hide  whip,  flexible  from  the  handle,  which  was 
pleasantly  known  in  Dinwiddie  as  a  "mule-skinner." 
His  face,  burned  to  the  colour  of  ripe  wheat,  wore  a 
rapt  and  exalted  look,  as  though  the  chasing  of  a  small 
animal  to  its  death  had  called  forth  his  latent  spiritual 
ardours.  Beyond  him,  like  a  low,  smouldering  fire, 
ran  the  red  and  gold  of  the  abandoned  field. 

"Please  be  careful,  Virginia,"  said  Oliver  again,  as 
they  left  the  road  and  cantered  in  the  direction  of  a 
clump  of  pine  woods  in  a  hollow  beyond  a  rotting 
"snake"  fence. 

But  she  had  seen  his  eyes  on  Abby  a  minute  before, 
and  had  heard  his  laugh  as  he  answered  her.  A  wave 
of  recklessness  broke  over  her,  and  she  felt  that  she 
despised  fear  with  all  her  Pendleton  blood,  which 
loved  a  fight  only  less  passionately  than  it  loved  a 
sermon.  Whatever  happened  —  if  she  broke  her  neck 
—  she  resolved  that  she  would  keep  up  with  Abby! 
With  the  drumming  of  the  blood  in  her  ears,  an  almost 
savage  joy  awoke  in  her.  Deep  down  in  her,  so  deep 
that  it  was  buried  beneath  the  Virginia  Pendleton 
whom  she  and  her  world  knew,  there  stirred  faintly 
the  seeds  of  that  ancient  lust  of  cruelty  from  which 
have  sprung  the  brutal  pleasures  of  men.  The  part 
of  her  —  that  small  secret  part  — -  which  was  primitive 
answered  to  the  impulse  of  jealousy  as  it  did  to  the 
rapturous  baying  of  the  hounds  out  of  the  red  and 
gold  distance.  A  branch  grazed  her  cheek;  her  hat 
went  as  she  raced  down  the  high  banks  of  a  stream; 
the  thicket  of  elder  tore  the  ribbon  from  her  head, 
and  loosened  her  dark  flying  hair  from  its  braid. 
In  that  desolate  country,  in  the  midst  of  the  October 
meadows,  with  the  cries  of  the  hounds  rising,  like  the 


328  VIRGINIA 

voice  of  mortal  tragedy,  out  of  the  tinted  mist  on 
the  marshes,  the  drama  of  human  passions  —  which  is 
the  only  drama  for  the  world's  stage  —  was  played  out 
to  an  ending:  love,  jealousy,  envy,  desire,  desperation, 
regret  —  * 

But  when  the  hunt  was  over,  and  she  rode  home, 
with  a  bedraggled  brush,  which  had  once  been  grey, 
tied  to  her  bridle,  all  the  gorgeous  pageantry  of  the 
autumnal  landscape  seemed  suddenly  asking  her: 
"What  is  the  use?"  Her  mood  had  altered,  and  she 
felt  that  her  victory  was  as  worthless  as  the  mud- 
stained  fox's  brush  that  swung  mockingly  back  and 
forth  from  her  bridle.  The  excitement  of  the  chase 
had  ebbed  away,  leaving  only  the  lifeless  satisfaction 
of  the  reward.  She  had  neglected  her  children,  she 
had  risked  her  life  —  and  all  for  the  sake  of  wresting  a 
bit  of  dead  fur  out  of  Abby's  grasp.  A  spirit  which 
was  not  her  spirit,  which  was  so  old  that  she  no  longer 
recognized  that  it  had  any  part  in  her,  which  was  yet 
so  young  that  it  burned  in  her  heart  with  the  unquench 
able  flame  of  youth  —  this  spirit,  which  was  at  the 
same  time  herself  and  not  herself,  had  driven  her, 
as  helpless  as  a  fallen  leaf,  in  a  chase  that  she  despised, 
towards  a  triumph  that  was  worthless. 

"By  Jove,  you  rode  superbly,  Virginia!  I  had  no 
idea  you  could  do  it,"  said  Oliver,  as  they  trotted  into 
Dinwiddie. 

She  smiled  back  at  him,  and  her  smile  was  tired, 
dust-stained,  enigmatical. 

"No,  you  did  not  know  that  I  could  do  it,"  she 
answered. 

"You'll  keep  it  up  now,  won't  you?"  he  asked 
pleadingly. 


THE  WILL  TO  LIVE  329 

For  an  instant,  looking  away  from  him  over  the 
radiant  fields,  she  pondered  the  question.  The  silence 
which  had  settled  around  her  was  unbroken  by  the 
sound  of  the  horses'  hoofs,  by  the  laughter  of  the 
hunters,  by  the  far-off  soughing  of  the  pine  trees  in  the 
forest;  and  into  this  silence,  which  seemed  to  cover 
an  eternity,  the  two  Virginias  —  the  Virginia  who 
desired  and  the  Virginia  who  had  learned  from  the 
ages  to  stifle  her  desire  —  wrestled  for  the  first  time 
together. 

"Virginia!"  floated  Abby's  breezy  tones  from  the 
street  behind  her,  and  turning,  she  rode  back  to  the 
Goodes'  gate,  where  the  others  were  dismounting. 
"Virginia,  aren't  you  going  to  Atlantic  City  with  us 
to-morrow?" 

Again  she  hesitated.  Almost  unconsciously  her 
gaze  passed  from  Abby  to  Oliver,  and  she  saw  his 
pride  in  her  in  the  smile  with  which  he  watched  her. 

"Yes,  I'll  go  with  you,"  she  replied  after  a  minute. 

She  had,  for  once  in  her  life,  done  the  thing  she 
wanted  to  do  simply  because  she  wanted  to  do  it. 
She  had  won  back  what  she  was  losing;  she  had  fought 
a  fair  fight  and  she  had  triumphed;  yet  as  she  rode 
down  the  street  to  her  gate,  there  was  none  of  the 
exultation  of  victory,  none  of  the  fugitive  excitement 
of  pleasure  even  in  her  heart.  Like  other  mortals  in 
other  triumphant  instants,  she  was  learning  that  the 
fruit  of  desire  may  be  sweet  to  the  eyes  and  bitter 
on  the  lips.  She  had  sacrificed  duty  to  pleasure,  and 
suddenly  she  had  discovered  that  to  one  with  her 
heritage  of  good  and  evil  the  two  are  inseparable. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE   PANG    OF   MOTHERHOOD 

IN  THE  night  Harry  awoke  crying.  He  had  dreamed, 
he  said  between  his  sobs,  when  Virginia,  slipperless 
and  in  her  nightdress,  bent  over  him,  that  his  mother 
was  going  away  from  him  forever. 

"Only  for  two  nights,  darling.  Here,  lean  close 
against  mother.  Don't  you  know  that  she  wouldn't 
stay  away  from  her  precious  boy?" 

"But  two  nights  are  so  long.  Aren't  two  nights 
almost  forever?" 

"Why,  my  lamb,  it  was  just  two  nights  ago  that 
grandma  came  over  and  told  you  the  Bible  story  about 
Joseph  and  his  brothers.  That  was  only  a  teeny- 
weeny  time  ago,  wasn't  it?" 

"But  you  were  here,  then  mamma.  And  this  morn 
ing  was  almost  forever.  You  stayed  out  so  long  that 
Lucy  said  you  weren't  coming  back  any  more." 

"That  was  naughty  of  Lucy  because  she  is  old 
enough  to  know  better.  Why  do  you  choke  that  way? 
Does  your  throat  hurt  you?" 

"It  hurts  because  you  are  going  away,  mamma." 

"But  I'm  going  only  to  be  with  papa,  precious. 
Don't  you  want  poor  papa  to  have  somebody  with 
him?" 

"He's  so  big  he  can  go  by  himself.  But  suppose 
the  black  man  should  come  in  the  night  while  you  are 

330 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  331 

away,  and    I'd  get  scared  and  nobody  would  hear 


me." 


"Grandma  would  hear  you,  Harry,  and  there  isn't 
any  black  man  that  comes  in  the  night.  You  must  put 
that  idea  out  of  your  head,  dear.  You're  getting  too 
big  a  boy  to  be  afraid  of  the  dark." 

"Four  isn't  big,  is  it?" 

"You're  nearer  five  than  four  now,  honey.  Let 
me  button  your  nightgown,  and  lie  down  and  try  to 
go  to  sleep  while  mamma  sings  to  you.  Does  your 
throat  really  hurt  you?" 

"It  feels  as  if  it  had  teensy-weensy  marbles  in 
it.  They  came  there  when  I  woke  up  in  the 
dark  and  thought  that  you  were  going  away  to 


morrow." 


"Well,  if  your  throat  hurts  you,  of  course  mamma 
won't  leave  you.  Open  your  mouth  wide  now  so  I 
can  look  at  it." 

She  lighted  a  candle  while  Harry,  kneeling  in  the 
middle  of  his  little  bed,  followed  her  with  his  blue 
eyes,  which  looked  three  times  their  usual  size  because 
of  his  flushed  cheeks  and  his  mounting  excitement. 
His  throat  appeared  slightly  inflamed  when  she  held 
the  candle  close  to  it,  and  after  tucking  him  beneath 
the  bedclothes,  she  poured  a  little  camphorated  oil 
into  a  cup  and  heated  it  on  the  small  alcohol  lamp 
she  kept  in  the  nursery. 

"Mamma  is  going  to  put  a  nice  bandage  on  your 
throat,  and  then  she  is  going  to  lie  down  beside  you 
and  sing  you  to  sleep,"  she  said  cheerfully,  as  she 
cut  off  a  strip  of  flannel  from  an  old  petticoat  and 
prepared  to  saturate  it  with  the  heated  oil. 

"Will  you  stay  here  all  night?" 


332  VIRGINIA 

"All  night,  precious,  if  you'll  be  good  and  go  fast 
asleep  while  I  am  singing." 

Holding  tightly  to  her  nightdress,  Harry  cuddled 
down  between  the  pillows  with  a  contented  sigh. 
"Then  I  don't  mind  about  the  marbles  in  my  throat," 
he  said. 

"But  mamma  minds,  and  she  wants  to  cure  them 
before  morning.  Now  lie  very  still  while  she  wraps 
this  good  flannel  bandage  over  the  sore  places." 

"I'll  lie  very  still  if  you'll  hold  me,  mamma." 

Blowing  out  the  candle,  she  crept  into  the  little 
bed  beside  him,  and  lay  singing  softly  until  his  hands 
released  their  desperate  grasp  of  her  nightdress,  and 
he  slipped  quietly  off  to  sleep.  Even  then,  remem 
bering  her  promise,  she  did  not  go  back  to  her  bedroom 
until  daylight. 

"I  wonder  what  makes  Harry  so  afraid  of  the  dark?" 
she  asked,  when  Oliver  awoke  and  turned  question- 
ingly  towards  her.  "He  worked  himself  really  sick 
last  night  just  from  pure  nervousness.  I  had  to 
put  camphorated  oil  on  his  throat  and  chest,  and  lie 
beside  him  until  morning.  He  is  sleeping  quietly 
now,  but  it  simply  frightens  me  to  death  when  one 
of  them  complains  of  sore  throat." 

"You've  spoiled  him,  that's  what's  the  matter," 
replied  Oliver,  yawning.  "As  long  as  you  humour 
him,  he'll  never  outgrow  these  night  terrors.' 

"But  how  can  you  tell  whether  the  fright  makes 
him  sick  or  sickness  brings  on  the  fright?  His  throat 
was  really  red,  there's  no  doubt  about  that,  but  I 
couldn't  see  last  night  that  it  was  at  all  ulcerated." 

"He  gives  you  more  trouble  than  both  the  other 
children  put  together." 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  333 

"Well,  he's  a  boy,  and  boys  do  give  one  more 
trouble.  But,  then,  you  have  less  patience  with  him, 
Oliver." 

"That's  because  he's  a  boy,  and  I  like  boys  to  show 
some  pluck  even  when  they  are  babies.  Lucy  and 
Jenny  never  raise  these  midnight  rows  whenever  they 
awake  in  the  dark." 

"They  are  not  nearly  so  sensitive.  You  don't  un 
derstand  Harry." 

"Perhaps  I  don't,  but  I  can  see  that  you  are  ruining 
him." 

"Oh,  Oliver!  How  can  you  say  such  a  cruel  thing 
tome?" 

"I  didn't  mean  to  be  cruel,  Jinny,  and  you  know 
it,  but  all  the  same  it  makes  me  positively  sick  to 
see  you  make  a  slave  of  yourself  over  the  children. 
Why,  you  look  as  if  you  hadn't  slept  for  a  week. 
You  are  positively  haggard." 

"But  I  have  to  be  up  with  Harry  when  he  is  ill. 
How  in  the  world  could  I  help  it?" 

"You  know  he  kicks  up  these  rows  almost  every 
night,  and  you  humour  every  one  of  his  whims  as  if 
it  were  the  first  one.  Don't  you  ever  get  tired?" 

"Of  course  I  do,  but  I  can't  let  my  child  suffer 
even  if  it  is  only  from  fear.  You  haven't  any  patience, 
Oliver.  Don't  you  remember  the  time  when  you 
used  to  be  afraid  of  things?" 

"I  was  never  afraid  of  the  dark  in  my  life.  No 
sensible  child  is,  if  he  is  brought  up  properly." 

"Do  you  mean  I  am  not  bringing  up  my  chil 
dren "  Her  tears  choked  her  and  she  could  not 

finish  the  sentence. 

"I  don't  mean  anything  except  that  you  are  making 


334  VIRGINIA 

an  old  woman  of  yourself  before  your  time.  You've 
let  yourself  go  until  you  look  ten  years  older 
than 

He  checked  himself  in  time,  but  she  understood 
without  his  words  that  he  had  started  to  say, 
"ten  years  older  than  Abby."  Yes,  Abby  did  look 
young  —  amazingly  young  —  but,  then,  what  else  had 
she  to  think  of? 

She  lay  down,  but  she  was  trembling  so  violently 
that  she  sat  up  quickly  again  hi  order  to  recover  her 
self-possession  more  easily.  It  seemed  to  her  that  the 
furious  beating  of  her  heart  must  make  him  understand 
how  he  had  wounded  her.  It  was  the  first  discussion 
approaching  a  quarrel  they  had  had  since  their  mar 
riage,  for  she,  who  was  so  pliable  in  all  other  matters, 
had  discovered  that  she  could  become  as  hard  as  iron 
where  the  difference  related  to  Harry. 

"You  are  unjust,  Oliver.  I  think  you  ought  to 
see  it,"  she  said  in  a  voice  which  she  kept  by  an  effort 
from  breaking. 

"I'll  never  see  it,  Jinny,"  and  some  dogged  impulse 
to  hurt  her  more  made  him  add,  "It's  for  Harry's 
sake  as  well  as  yours  that  I'm  speaking." 

"For  Harry's  sake?  Oh,  you  don't  mean  —  you 
can't  really  mean  that  you  think  I'm  not  doing  the 
best  for  my  child,  Oliver?" 

A  year  ago  Oliver  would  have  surrendered  at  once 
before  the  terror  in  her  eyes;  but  in  those  twelve  long 
months  of  effort,  of  hope,  of  balked  ambition,  of 
bitter  questioning,  and  of  tragic  disillusionment,  a 
new  quality  had  developed  in  his  character,  and  the 
generous  sympathy  of  youth  had  hardened  at  thirty- 
four  to  the  cautious  cynicism  of  middle-age.  It  is 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  335 

doubtful  if  even  he  himself  realized  how  transient 
such  a  state  must  be  to  a  nature  whose  hidden  springs 
were  moved  so  easily  by  the  mere  action  of  change  — 
by  the  effect  of  any  alteration  in  the  objects  that 
surrounded  him.  Because  the  enthusiasm  of  youth 
was  exhausted  at  the  minute,  it  seemed  to  him  that 
he  had  lost  it  forever.  And  to  Virginia,  who  saw 
but  one  thing  at  a  time  and  to  whom  that  one  thing 
was  always  the  present  instant,  it  seemed  that  the 
firm  ground  upon  which  she  trod  had  crumbled  be 
neath  her. 

"Well,  if  you  want  the  truth,"  he  said  quietly  (as 
if  any  mother  ever  wanted  the  truth  about  such  a  mat 
ter),  "I  think  you  make  a  mistake  to  spoil  Harry  as 
you  do." 

"But,"  she  brought  out  the  words  with  a  pathetic 
quiver,  "I  treat  him  just  as  I  do  the  others,  and  you 
never  say  anything  about  my  spoiling  them." 

"Oh,  the  others  are  girls.  Girls  aren't  so  easily 
ruined  somehow.  They  don't  get  such  hard  knocks 
later  on,  so  it  makes  less  difference  about  them." 

As  she  sat  there  in  bed,  propped  up  on  her  elbow, 
which  trembled  violently  against  the  pillows,  with 
her  cambric  nightdress,  trimmed  only  with  a  narrow 
band  of  crocheted  lace,  opened  at  her  slender  throat, 
and  her  hair,  which  was  getting  thin  at  the  temples, 
drawn  unbecomingly  back  from  her  forehead,  she 
looked,  indeed,  as  Oliver  had  thought,  "at  least  ten 
years  older  than  Abby."  Though  she  was  not  yet 
thirty,  the  delicate,  flower-like  bloom  of  her  beauty 
was  already  beginning  to  fade.  The  spirit  which  had 
animated  her  yesterday  appeared  to  have  gone  out  of 
her  now.  He  thought  how  lovely  she  had  been  at 


336  VIRGINIA 

twenty  when  he  saw  her  for  the  first  time  after  his 
return  to  Dinwiddie;  and  a  sudden  anger  seized  him 
because  she  was  letting  herself  break,  because  she 
was  so  needlessly  sacrificing  her  youth  and  her  beauty. 

An  hour  later  she  got  up  and  dressed  herself,  with 
the  feeling  that  she  had  not  rested  a  minute  during 
the  night.  Harry  was  listless  and  fretful  when  he 
awoke,  and  while  she  put  on  his  clothes,  she  debated 
with  herself  whether  or  not  she  should  summon  old 
Doctor  Fraser  from  around  the  corner.  When  his  lesson 
hour  came,  he  climbed  into  her  lap  and  went  to  sleep 
with  his  hot  little  head  on  her  shoulder,  and  though 
he  seemed  better  by  evening,  she  was  still  so  anxious 
about  him  that  she  forgot  that  she  had  promised 
Abby  to  go  with  them  to  Atlantic  City  until  Oliver 
came  in  at  dusk  and  reminded  her. 

"Aren't  you  going,  Virginia?"  he  inquired,  as  he 
hunted  in  the  closet  for  his  bag  which  she  had  not  had 
time  to  pack. 

"I  can't,  Oliver.  Harry  isn't  well.  He  has  been 
unlike  himself  all  day,  and  I  am  afraid  to  leave  him." 

"He  looks  all  right,"  he  remarked,  bending  over 
the  child  in  Virginia's  lap.  "Does  anything  hurt  you, 
Harry?" 

"He  doesn't  seem  to  know  exactly  what  it  is," 
answered  Virginia,  "but  if  he  isn't  well  by  morning, 
I'll  send  for  Doctor  Fraser." 

"He's  got  a  good  colour,  and  I  believe  he's  as  well 
as  he  ever  was,"  replied  Oliver,  while  a  curious  note 
of  hostility  sounded  in  his  voice.  "There's  nothing 
the  matter  with  the  boy,"  he  added  more  positively 
after  a  minute.  "Aren't  you  coming,  Virginia?" 

She  looked  up  at  him  from  the  big  rocking-chair  in 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  337 

which  she  sat  with  Harry  in  her  arms,  and  as  she  did 
so,  both  became  conscious  that  the  issue  had  broadened 
from  a  question  of  her  going  to  Atlantic  City  into  a 
direct  conflict  of  wills.  The  only  thing  that  could 
make  her  oppose  him  had  happened  for  the  first 
time  since  her  marriage.  The  feminine  impulse  to 
yield  was  overmatched  by  the  maternal  impulse  to 
protect.  She  would  have  surrendered  her  soul  to  him 
for  the  asking;  but  she  could  not  surrender,  even 
had  she  desired  to  do  so,  the  mother  love  which  had 
passed  into  her  from  out  the  ages  before  she  had  been, 
and  which  would  pass  through  her  into  the  ages  to  come 
after  her. 

"Of  course,  if  the  little  chap  were  really  suffering, 
I'd  be  as  anxious  about  staying  as  you  are,"  said 
Oliver  impatiently;  "but  there's  nothing  the  matter. 
You're  all  right,  aren't  you,  Harry?" 

"Yes,  I'm  all  right,"  repeated  Harry,  yawning  and 
snuggling  closer  to  Virginia,  "but  I'm  sleepy." 

"He  isn't  all  right,"  insisted  Virginia  obstinately. 
"There's  something  wrong  with  him.  I  don't  know 
what  it  is,  but  he  isn't  in  the  least  like  himself." 

"It's  just  your  imagination.  You've  got  the  chil 
dren  on  the  brain,  Virginia.  Don't  you  remember  the 
time  you  woke  me  in  the  night  and  sent  me  after 
Doctor  Eraser  because  Jenny  had  a  bad  attack  of  the 
hiccoughs?" 

"I  know,"  acknowledged  Virginia  humbly.  She 
could  be  humble  enough,  but  what  good  did  that  do 
when  she  was,  as  he  told  himself  irritably,  "as 
stubborn  as  a  mule"?  Her  softness  —  she  had  seemed 
as  soft  as  flowers  when  he  married  her  —  had  been 
her  greatest  charm  for  him  after  her  beauty;  and  now, 


338  VIRGINIA 

at  the  end  of  eight  years  in  which  she  had  appeared 
as  delightfully  invertebrate  as  he  could  have  desired, 
she  revealed  to  his  astonished  eyes  a  backbone  that 
was  evidently  made  of  iron.  She  was  immovable, 
he  admitted,  and  because  she  was  immovable  he  was 
conscious  of  a  sharp  unreasonable  impulse  to  reduce 
her  to  the  pliant  curves  of  her  girlhood.  After  eight 
years  of  an  absolute  supremacy,  which  had  been  far 
from  good  for  him,  his  will  had  been  tripped  up  at 
last  by  so  small  a  thing  as  a  mere  whim  of  Virginia's. 

"You  told  Abby  you  would  go,"  he  urged,  exasper 
ated  rather  than  soothed  by  her  humility.  "And 
it's  too  late  now  for  her  to  ask  any  one  else." 

"I'm  so  sorry,  dear,  but  I  never  once  thought 
about  it.  I've  been  so  worried  all  day." 

He  looked  at  the  child,  lying  flushed  and  drowsy 
in  Virginia's  arms,  and  his  face  hardened  until  a  latent 
brutality  crept  out  around  his  handsome,  but  loosely 
moulded,  lips.  The  truth  was  that  Harry  had  never 
looked  healthier  than  he  did  at  that  instant  in  the 
firelight,  and  the  whole  affair  appeared  to  Oliver  only 
another  instance  of  what  he  called  Virginia's  "sensa 
tional  motherhood." 

"Can't  you  see  for  yourself  that  he's  perfectly 
well?"  he  asked. 

"I  know  he  looks  so,  dear,  but  he  isn't." 

"Well,  here's  your  mother.  Leave  it  to  her.  She 
will  agree  with  me." 

"Why,  what  is  it,  Jinny?"  asked  Mrs.  Pendleton, 
laying  her  bundle  on  the  couch  (for  she  had  come 
prepared  to  spend  the  night),  and  regarding  Oliver  with 
the  indulgent  eyes  of  an  older  generation. 

"Virginia  says  at  the  last  minute  that  she  won't  go 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  339 

with  us,"  said  Oliver,  angry,  yet  caressing  as  he  always 
was  in  his  manner  to  his  mother-in-law,  to  whom  he  was 
sincerely  devoted.  "She's  got  into  her  head  that 
there's  something  wrong  with  Harry,  but  you  can 
tell  by  looking  at  the  child  that  he  is  perfectly  well." 

"But  I  was  up  with  him  last  night,  mother.  His 
throat  hurts  him,"  broke  in  Virginia  in  a  voice  that 
was  full  of  emotion. 

"He  certainly  looks  all  right,"  remarked  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  "and  I  can  take  care  of  him  if  anything 
should  be  wrong."  Then  she  added  very  gravely,  "If 
you  can't  go,  of  course  Oliver  must  stay  at  home,  too, 
Virginia." 

"I  can't,"  said  Oliver;  "not  just  for  a  whim,  any 
way.  It  would  break  up  the  party.  Besides,  I 
didn't  get  a  holiday  all  summer,  and  I'll  blow  up 
that  confounded  bank  unless  I  take  a  change." 

In  the  last  quarter  of  an  hour  the  trip  had  become 
of  tremendous  importance  to  him.  From  a  trivial 
incident  which  he  might  have  relinquished  a  week 
ago  without  regret,  the  excursion  with  Abby  had  at 
tained  suddenly  the  dignity  and  the  power  of  an 
event  in  his  life.  Opposition  had  magnified  inclination 
into  desire. 

"I  don't  think  it  will  do  for  Oliver  to  go  without 
you,  Jinny,"  said  Mrs.  Pendleton,  and  the  gravity  of 
her  face  showed  how  carefully  she  was  weighing  her 
words. 

"But  I  can't  go,  mother.  You  don't  understand," 
replied  Virginia,  while  her  lips  worked  convulsively. 
No  one  could  understand  —  not  even  her  mother. 
Of  the  three  of  them,  it  is  probable  that  she  alone 
realized  the  complete  significance  of  her  decision. 


340  VIRGINIA 

"Well,  it's  too  late  now,  anyway,"  remarked  Oliver 
shortly.  "You  wouldn't  have  time  to  dress  and  catch 
the  train  even  if  you  wanted  to." 

Taking  up  his  bag,  he  kissed  her  carelessly,  shook 
hands  with  Mrs.  Pendleton,  and  throwing  a  "Good 
bye,  General!"  to  Harry,  went  out  of  the  door. 

As  he  vanished,  Virginia  started  up  quickly,  called 
"Oliver!"  under  her  breath,  and  then  sat  down  again, 
drawing  her  child  closer  in  her  arms.  Her  face  had 
grown  grey  and  stricken  like  the  face  of  an  old  woman. 
Every  atom  of  her  quivered  with  the  longing  to  run 
after  him,  to  yield  to  his  wish,  to  promise  anything 
he  asked  of  her.  Yet  she  knew  that  if  he  came  back, 
they  would  only  pass  again  through  the  old  wearing 
struggle  of  wills.  She  had  chosen  not  as  she  desired 
to,  but  as  she  must,  and  already  she  was  learning 
that  life  forces  one  in  the  end  to  abide  by  one's  choices. 

"Oh,  Virginia,  I  am  afraid  it  was  a  mistake,"  said 
Mrs.  Pendleton  in  an  agonized  tone.  The  horror  of  a 
scandal,  which  was  stronger  in  the  women  of  her 
generation  than  even  the  horror  of  illness,  still  darkened 
her  mind. 

A  shiver  passed  through  Virginia  and  left  her  stiller 
and  graver  than  before. 

"No,  it  was  not  a  mistake,  mother,"  she  answered 
quietly.  "I  did  what  I  was  obliged  to  do.  Oliver 
could  not  understand." 

As  she  uttered  the  words,  she  saw  Oliver's  face 
turned  to  Abby  with  the  gay  and  laughing  expression 
she  had  seen  on  it  when  the  two  rode  down  Old  Street 
together,  and  a  wave  of  passionate  jealousy  swept 
over  her.  She  had  let  him  go  alone;  he  was  angry 
with  her;  and  for  three  days  he  would  be  with  Abby 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  341 

almost  every  minute.  And  suddenly,  she  heard  spoken 
by  a  mocking  voice  at  the  back  of  her  brain:  "You 
look  at  least  ten  years  older  than  Abby." 

"It  does  seem  as  if  he  might  have  stayed  at  home," 
remarked  Mrs.  Pendleton;  "but  he  is  so  used  to  having 
his  own  way  that  it  is  harder  for  him  to  give  it  up 
than  for  the  rest  of  us.  Your  father  says  you  have 
spoiled  him." 

She  had  spoiled  him  —  this  she  saw  clearly  now, 
she  who  had  never  seen  anything  clearly  until  it  was 
too  late  for  sentimentality  to  work  its  harm.  From  the 
day  of  her  marriage  she  had  spoiled  him  because 
spoiling  him  had  been  for  her  own  happiness  as  well 
as  for  his.  She  had  yielded  to  him  since  her  chief 
desire  had  been  simply  to  yield  and  to  satisfy.  Her 
unselfishness  had  been  merely  selfishness  cloaked  in 
the  familiar  aspect  of  duty.  Another  vision  of  him, 
not  as  he  looked  when  he  was  riding  with  Abby,  but 
as  he  had  appeared  to  her  in  the  early  days  of  their 
marriage,  floated  before  her.  He  had  been  hers 
utterly  then  —  hers  with  his  generous  impulses,  his 
high  ideals,  his  undisciplined  emotions.  And  what 
had  she  done  with  him?  What  were  her  good  inten 
tions  —  what  was  her  love,  even,  worth  —  when  her 
intentions  and  her  love  alike  had  been  so  lacking  in 
wisdom?  It  was  as  if  she  condemned  herself  with  a 
judgment  which  was  not  her  own,  as  if  her  life-long 
habit  of  seeing  only  the  present  instant  had  suddenly 
deserted  her. 

"He  has  been  so  nervous  and  unlike  himself  ever 
since  the  failure  of  his  play,  mother,"  she  said.  "It's 
hard  to  understand,  but  it  meant  more  to  him  than 
a  woman  can  realize." 


342  VIRGINIA 

"I  suppose  so,"  returned  Mrs.  Pendleton  sympa 
thetically.  "Your  father  says  that  he  spoke  to  him 
bitterly  the  other  day  about  being  a  failure.  Of  course, 
he  isn't  one  in  the  least,  darling,"  she  added  reassur 
ingly. 

"I  sometimes  think  that  Oliver's  ambition  was  the 
greatest  thing  in  his  life,"  said  Virginia  musingly. 
"It  meant  to  him,  I  believe,  a  great  deal  of  what  the 
children  mean  to  me.  He  felt  that  it  was  himself,  and 
yet  in  a  way  closer  than  himself.  Until  that  dreadful 
time  in  New  York  I  never  understood  what  his  work 
may  mean  to  a  man." 

"I  wish  you  could  have  gone  with  him,  Jinny." 

"I  couldn't,"  replied  Virginia,  as  she  had  replied  so 
often  before.  "I  know  Harry  doesn't  look  sick," 
she  went  on  with  that  soft  obstinacy  which  never 
attacked  and  yet  never  yielded  a  point,  "but  some 
thing  tells  me  that  he  isn't  well." 

An  hour  later,  when  she  put  him  to  bed,  he  looked 
so  gay  and  rosy  that  she  almost  allowed  herself  the 
weakness  of  a  regret.  Suppose  nothing  was  wrong, 
after  all?  Suppose,  as  Oliver  had  said,  she  was 
merely  "sensational"?  While  she  undressed  in  the 
dark  for  fear  of  awaking  Jenny,  who  was  sleeping 
soundly  in  her  crib  on  Virginia's  side  of  the  bed,  her 
mind  went  back  over  the  two  harrowing  days  through 
which  she  had  just  lived,  and  she  asked  herself,  not 
if  she  had  triumphed  for  good  over  Abby,  but  if  she 
had  really  done  what  was  right  both  for  Oliver  and  the 
children.  After  all,  the  whole  of  life  came  back 
simply  to  doing  the  thing  that  was  right.  So  unused 
was  she  to  the  kind  of  introspection  which  weighs 
emotions  as  if  they  were  facts,  that  she  thought  slowly, 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  343 

from  sheer  lack  of  practice  in  the  subtler  processes  of 
reasoning.  Worry,  the  plain,  ordinary  sort  of  worry 
with  which  she  was  unhappily  familiar,  had  not 
prepared  her  for  the  piercing  anguish  which  follows 
the  probing  of  the  open  wounds  in  one's  soul.  To  lie 
sleepless  over  butchers'  bills  was  different,  somehow, 
from  lying  sleepless  over  the  possible  loss  of  Oliver's 
love.  It  was  different,  and  yet,  just  as  she  had 
asked  herself  over  and  over  again  on  those  other 
nights  if  she  had  done  right  to  run  up  so  large  an 
account  at  Mr.  Dewlap's,  so  she  questioned  her 
conscience  now  in  the  hope  of  finding  justification  for 
Oliver.  "Ought  I  to  have  gone  on  the  hunt  yester 
day?"  she  asked  kneeling,  with  sore  and  aching  limbs, 
by  the  bedside.  "Had  I  a  right  to  risk  my  life  when 
the  children  are  so  young  that  they  need  me  every 
minute?  It  is  true  nothing  happened.  Providence 
watched  over  me;  but,  then,  something  might  have 
happened,  and  I  could  have  blamed  only  myself. 
I  was  jealous  —  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  was 
jealous  —  and  because  I  was  jealous,  I  did  wrong 
and  neglected  my  duty.  Yesterday  I  sacrificed  the 
children  to  Oliver,  and  to-day  I  sacrificed  Oliver  to 
the  children.  I  love  Oliver  as  much,  but  I  have 
made  the  children.  They  came  only  because  I  brought 
them  into  the  world.  I  am  responsible  for  them  — 
I  am  responsible  for  them,"  she  repeated  passionately; 
and  a  moment  later,  she  prayed  softly:  "O  Lord, 
help  me  to  want  to  do  what  is  right." 

Through  the  night,  tired  and  sore  as  she  was,  she 
hardly  closed  her  eyes,  and  she  was  lying  wide  awake, 
with  her  hand  on  the  railing  of  Jenny's  crib,  and  her 
gaze  on  the  half-bared  bough  of  the  old  mulberry 


344  VIRGINIA 

tree  in  the  street,  when  a  cry,  or  less  than  a  cry, 
a  small,  choking  whimper,  from  the  nursery,  caused 
her  to  spring  out  of  bed  with  a  start  and  slip  into  her 
wrapper  which  lay  across  the  edge  of  the  quilt. 

"I'm  coming,  darling,"  she  called  softly,  and  the 
answer  came  back  in  Harry's  voice:  "Mamma,  I'm 
afraid!" 

Without  waiting  to  put  on  her  slippers,  for  one 
of  them  had  slid  under  the  bed,  she  ran  across  the 
carpet  and  through  the  doorway  into  the  adjoining 
room. 

"What  is  it,  my  lamb?  Does  anything  hurt  you?" 
she  asked  anxiously. 

"I'm  afraid,  mamma." 

"What  are  you  afraid  of?    Mamma  is  here,  pre 


cious." 


His  little  hands  were  hot  when  she  clasped  them, 
and  the  pathetic  wonder  in  his  blue  eyes  made  her 
heart  stand  still  with  a  fear  greater  than  Harry's. 
Ever  since  the  children  had  come  she  had  lived  in 
terror  of  a  serious  illness  attacking  them. 

"Where  does  it  hurt  you,  darling?  Can't  you  tell 
me?" 

"It  feels  so  funny  when  I  swallow,  mamma.  It's 
all  full  of  flannel." 

"Will  you  open  your  mouth  wide,  then,  and  let 
mamma  mop  your  throat  with  turpentine?" 

But  Harry  hated  turpentine  even  more  than  he 
hated  the  sore  throat,  and  he  protested  with  tears 
while  she  found  the  bottle  in  the  bathroom  and 
swathed  the  end  of  the  wire  mop  in  cotton.  When  she 
brought  it  to  his  bedside,  he  fought  so  strenuously 
that  she  was  obliged  at  last  to  give  up.  His  fever 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  345 

had  excited  him,  and  he  sobbed  violently  while  she 
applied  the  bandages  to  his  throat  and  chest. 

"Is  it  any  better,  dear?"  she  asked  desperately  at 
the  end  of  an  hour  in  which  he  had  lain,  weeping  and 
angry,  in  her  arms. 

"It  feels  funny.  I  don't  like  it,"  he  sobbed,  pushing 
her  from  him. 

"Then  I'll  send  for  Doctor  Fraser.  He'll  make  you 
well." 

But  he  didn't  want  Doctor  Fraser,  who  gave  the 
meanest  medicines.  He  didn't  want  anybody.  He 
hated  everybody.  He  hated  Lucy.  He  hated  Jenny. 
When  at  last  day  came,  and  Marthy  appeared 
to  know  what  Virginia  wanted  for  breakfast,  he 
was  still  vowing  passionately  that  he  hated  them 
all. 

"  Marthy,-  run  at  once  for  Doctor  Fraser.  Harry  is 
quite  sick,"  said  Virginia,  pale  to  the  lips. 

"But  I  won't  see  him,  mamma,  and  I  won't  take 
his  medicines.  They  are  the  meanest  medicines." 

"Perhaps  he  won't  give  you  any,  precious,  and  if 
he  does,  mamma  will  taste  every  single  one  for  you." 

Then  Jenny  began  to  beg  to  get  up,  and  Lucy, 
who  had  been  watching  with  dispassionate  curiosity 
from  the  edge  of  her  little  bed,  was  sent  to  amuse 
her  until  Marthy 's  return. 

"Suppose  I  had  gone!"  thought  Virginia,  while  an 
overwhelming  thankfulness  swept  the  anxiety  out  of 
her  mind.  Not  until  the  servant  reappeared,  dragging 
the  fat  old  doctor  after  her,  did  Virginia  remember 
that  she  was  still  barefooted,  and  go  into  her  bedroom 
to  search  for  her  slippers. 

"You   don't   think   he   is   seriously   sick,   do   you, 


346  VIRGINIA 

doctor?     Is  there  any  need  to  be  alarmed?"  she  asked, 
and  her  voice  entreated  him  to  allay  her  anxiety. 

The  doctor,  a  benevolent  soul  in  a  body  which  had 
run  to  fat  from  lack  of  exercise,  was  engaged  in  holding 
Harry's  tongue  down  with  a  silver  spoon,  while,  in 
spite  of  the  child's  furious  protests,  he  leisurely  exam 
ined  his  throat.  When  the  operation  was  over,  and 
Harry,  crying,  choking,  and  kicking,  rolled  into  Vir 
ginia's  arms,  she  put  the  question  again,  vaguely 
rebelling  against  the  gravity  in  the  kind  old  face 
which  was  turned  half  away  from  her: 

"There's  nothing  really  the  matter,  is  there,  doctor?" 

He  turned  to  her,  and  laid  a  caressing,  if  heavy, 
hand  on  her  shoulder,  which  shook  suddenly  under 
the  thin  folds  of  her  dressing-gown.  After  forty  years 
in  which  he  had  watched  suffering  and  death,  he 
preserved  still  his  native  repugnance  to  contact  with 
any  side  of  life  that  did  not  have  a  comfortable  feeling 
to  it. 

"Oh,  we'll  get  him  all  right  soon,  with  some  good 
nursing,"  he  said  gently,  "but  I  think  we're  going 
to  have  a  bit  of  an  illness  on  our  hands." 

"But  not  serious,  doctor?    It  isn't  anything  serious? " 

She  felt  suddenly  so  weak  that  she  could  hardly 
stand,  and  instinctively  she  reached  out  to  grasp  the 
large,  protecting  arm  of  the  physician.  Even  then 
his  bland  professional  smile,  which  had  in  it  something 
of  the  serene  detachment  of  the  everlasting  purpose 
of  which  it  was  a  part,  did  not  fade,  hardly  changed 
even,  on  his  features. 

"Well,  I  think  we'd  better  get  the  other  children 
away.  It  might  be  serious  if  they  all  had  it  on  our 
hands." 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  347 

"Had  it?  Had  what?  Oh,  doctor  —  not  —  diph 
theria?" 

She  brought  out  the  word  with  a  face  of  such  unutter 
able  horror  that  he  turned  his  eyes  away,  lest  the 
memory  of  her  look  should  interfere  with  his  treatment  of 
the  next  case  he  visited.  There  was  something  infernal 
in  the  sound  of  the  thing  which  always  knocked  over 
the  mothers  of  his  generation.  He  had  never  seen 
one  of  them  who  could  hear  it  without  going  to  pieces 
on  his  hands;  and  for  that  reason  he  never  mentioned 
the  disease  by  name  unless  they  drove  him  to  it.  They 
feared  it  as  they  might  have  feared  the  plague  — 
and  even  more!  If  the  medical  profession  would 
begin  calling  it  something  else,  he  wondered  if  the 
unmitigated  terror  of  it  wouldn't  partially  subside? 

"Well,  it  looks  like  that  now,  Jinny,"  he  said 
soothingly;  "but  we'll  come  out  all  right,  never  fear. 
It  isn't  a  bad  case,  you  know,  and  the  chief  thing  is 
to  get  the  other  children  out  of  danger." 

At  this  she  went  over  like  a  log  on  the  bed,  and  it 
was  only  after  he  had  found  the  bottle  of  camphor 
on  the  mantelpiece  and  held  it  to  her  nostrils,  that  she 
revived  sufficiently  to  sit  up  again.  But  as  soon  as 
her  strength  came  back,  her  courage  surprised  and 
rejoiced  him.  After  that  one  sign  of  weakness,  she 
became  suddenly  strong,  and  he  knew  by  the  expression 
of  her  face,  for  he  had  had  great  experience  with 
mothers,  that  he  could  count  on  her  not  to  break 
down  again  while  he  needed  her. 

"  I'd  like  to  get  a  tent  made  of  some  sheets  and  keep 
a  kettle  boiling  under  it,"  he  said,  for  he  was  an 
old  man  and  belonged  to  the  dark  ages  of  medicine. 
"But  first  of  all  I'll  get  the  children  over  to  your 


348  VIRGINIA 

mother's.  They'd  better  not  come  in  here  again. 
I'll  ask  the  servant  to  attend  to  them." 

"You'll  find  her  in  the  dining-room,"  replied  Virginia, 
while  she  straightened  Harry's  bed  and  made  him 
more  comfortable.  The  weakness  had  passed,  leaving 
a  numbed  and  hardened  feeling  as  though  she  had 
turned  to  wood;  and  when,  a  little  later,  she  looked 
out  of  the  door  to  wave  good-bye  to  Lucy  and  Jenny, 
she  was  amazed  to  find  that  she  felt  almost  indiffer 
ent.  Every  emotion,  even  her  capacity  for  physical 
sensation,  seemed  to  respond  to  the  immediate  need 
of  her,  to  the  exhaustless  demands  on  her  bodily 
strength  and  her  courage.  As  long  as  there  was 
anything  to  be  done,  she  was  sure  now  that  she 
should  be  able  to  keep  up  and  not  lose  control  of 
herself. 

"May  we  come  back  soon,  mamma?"  asked  Lucy, 
standing  on  tiptoe  to  wave  at  her. 

"Just  as  soon  as  Harry  is  well,  darling.  Ask  grandpa 
to  pray  that  he  will  be  well  soon,  won't  you?" 

"Jenny '11  pay,"  lisped  the  baby,  from  Doctor 
Eraser's  arms,  where,  with  her  cap  on  one  side  and 
her  little  feet  kicking  delightedly,  she  was  beguiled 
by  the  promise  of  a  birthday  cake  over  at  grandma's. 

"I'll  look  in  again  in  an  hour  or  two,"  said  the 
doctor  in  his  jovial  tones  as  he  swung  down  the  stairs. 
Then  Lucy  pattered  after  him,  and  in  a  few  min 
utes  the  front  door  closed  loudly  behind  them, 
and  Virginia  went  back  to  the  nursery,  where  Harry 
was  coughing  the  strangling  cough  that  tore  at  her 
heart. 

By  nightfall  he  had  grown  very  ill,  and  when  the 
next  dawn  came,  it  found  her,  wan,  haggard,  and 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  349 

sleepless,  fighting  beside  the  old  doctor  under  the 
improvised  tent  of  sheets  which  covered  the  little  bed. 
The  thought  of  self  went  from  her  so  utterly  that  she 
only  remembered  she  was  alive  when  Marthy  brought 
food  and  tried  to  force  it  between  her  lips. 

"But  you  must  swallow  it,  ma'am.  You  need  to 
keep  up  your  strength." 

"How  do  you  think  he  looks,  Marthy?  Does  he 
feel  quite  so  hot  to  you?  He  seems  to  breathe  a  little 
better,  doesn't  he?" 

And  during  the  long  day,  while  the  patch  of  sunlight 
grew  larger,  lay  for  an  hour  like  yellow  silk  on  the 
windowsill,  and  then  slowly  dwindled  into  the  shadow, 
she  sat,  without  moving,  between  the  bed  and  the 
table  on  which  stood  the  bottles  of  medicine,  a  glass, 
and  a  pitcher  of  water.  When  the  child  slept,  over 
come  by  the  stupor  of  fever,  she  watched  him,  with 
drawn  breath,  lest  he  should  fade  away  from  her  if 
she  were  to  withdraw  her  passionate  gaze  for  an  instant. 
When  he  awoke  and  lay  moaning,  while  his  little 
body  shook  with  the  long  stifling  gasps  that  struggled 
between  his  lips,  she  held  him  tightly  clasped  in 
her  arms,  with  a  woman's  pathetic  faith  in  the  power 
of  a  physical  pressure  to  withstand  the  immaterial 
forces  of  death.  A  hundred  times  during  the  day 
he  aroused  himself,  stirred  faintly  in  his  feverish 
sleep,  and  called  her  name  in  the  voice  of  terror  with 
which  he  used  to  summon  her  in  the  night. 

"It  isn't  the  black  man  now,  darling,  is  it?  Remem 
ber  there  is  no  black  man,  and  mamma  is  close  here 
beside  you." 

No,  it  wasn't  the  black  man;  he  wasn't  afraid  of 
the  darkness  now,  but  he  would  like  to  have  his  ship. 


350  VIRGINIA 

When  she  brought  it,  he  played  for  a  few  minutes,  and 
dozed  off  still  grasping  the  toy  in  his  hands.  At  twelve 
the  doctor  came,  and  again  at  four,  when  the  patch 
of  sunlight,  by  which  she  told  the  hours,  had  begun 
to  grow  fainter  on  the  windowsill. 

"He  is  better,  doctor,  isn't  he?  Don't  you  notice 
that  he  struggles  less  when  he  breathes?" 

He  looked  at  her  with  an  expression  of  contempla 
tive  pity  in  his  old  watery  eyes,  and  she  gave  a  little 
cry  and  stretched  out  her  hands,  blindly  groping. 

"Doctor,  I'll  do  anything  —  anything,  if  you'll  only 
save  him."  An  impulse  to  reach  beyond  him  to 
some  impersonal,  cosmic  Power  greater  than  he  was, 
made  her  add  desperately:  "I'll  never  ask  for  any 
thing  else  in  my  life.  I'll  give  up  everything,  if  you'll 
only  promise  me  that  you  will  save  him." 

She  stood  up,  drawing  her  thin  figure,  as  tense  as 
a  cord,  to  its  full  height,  and  beneath  the  flowered 
blue  dressing-gown  her  shoulder  blades  showed  sharply 
under  their  fragile  covering  of  flesh.  Her  hair,  which 
she  had  not  undone  since  the  first  shock  of  Harry's 
illness,  hung  in  straight  folds  on  either  side  of  her 
pallid  and  haggard  face.  Even  the  colour  of  her  eyes 
seemed  to  have  changed,  for  their  flower-like  blue 
had  faded  to  a  dull  grey. 

"If  we  can  pull  through  the  night,  Jinny,"  he  said 
huskily,  and  added  almost  sternly,  "you  must  bear 
up,  so  much  depends  on  you.  Remember,  it  is  your 
first  serious  illness,  but  it  may  not  be  your  last. 
You've  got  to  take  the  pang  of  motherhood  along 
with  the  pleasure,  my  dear 

The  pang  of  motherhood!  Long  after  he  had  left 
her,  and  she  had  heard  the  street  gate  click  behind 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  351 

him,  she  sat  motionless,  repeating  the  words,  by 
Harry's  little  bed.  The  pang  of  motherhood  —  this 
was  what  she  was  suffering  —  the  poignant  suspense, 
the  quivering  waiting,  the  abject  terror  of  loss,  the 
unutterable  anguish  of  the  nerves,  as  if  one's  heart 
were  being  slowly  torn  out  of  one's  body.  She  had 
had  the  joy,  and  now  she  was  enduring  the  inevitable 
pang  which  is  bound  up,  like  a  hidden  pulse,  in  every 
mortal  delight.  Never  pleasure  without  pain,  never 
growth  without  decay,  never  life  without  death.  The 
Law  ruled  even  in  love,  and  all  the  pitiful  little  sacri 
fices  which  one  offered  to  Omnipotence,  which  one 
offered  blindly  to  the  Power  that  might  separate,  with 
a  flaming  sword,  the  cause  from  the  effect,  the  sub 
stance  from  the  shadow  —  what  of  them?  While 
Harry  lay  there,  wrapped  in  that  burning  stupor,  she 
prayed,  not  as  she  had  been  taught  to  pray  in  her 
childhood,  not  with  the  humble  and  resigned  worship 
of  civilization,  but  in  the  wild  and  threatening  lament 
of  a  savage  who  seeks  to  reach  the  ears  of  an  implacable 
deity.  In  the  last  twenty-four  hours  the  Unknown 
Power  she  entreated  had  changed,  in  her  imagination, 
to  an  idol  who  responded  only  to  the  shedding  of 
blood. 

"Only  spare  my  child  and  I  will  give  up  everything 
else!"  she  cried  from  the  extremity  of  her  anguish. 
The  sharp  edge  of  the  bed  hurt  her  bosom  and  she 
pressed  frantically  against  it.  Had  it  been  possible 
to  lacerate  her  body,  to  cut  her  flesh  with  knives,  she 
might  have  found  some  pitiable  comfort  in  the  mere 
physical  pain.  Beside  the  agony  in  her  mind,  a  pang 
of  the  flesh  would  have  been  almost  a  joy. 

When  at  last  she  rose  from  her  knees,  Harry  lay, 


352  VIRGINIA 

breathing  quietly,  with  his  eyes  closed  and  the  toy 
ship  on  the  blanket  beside  him.  His  childish  features 
had  shrunken  in  a  day  until  they  appeared  only  half 
their  natural  size,  and  a  faint  bluish  tinge  had  crept 
over  his  face,  wiping  out  all  the  sweet  rosy  colour. 
But  he  had  swallowed  a  few  spoonfuls  of  his  last  cup 
of  broth,  and  the  painful  choking  sound  had  ceased 
for  a  minute.  The  change,  slight  as  it  was,  had  fol 
lowed  so  closely  upon  her  prayers,  that,  while  it  lasted, 
she  passed  through  one  of  those  spiritual  crises  which 
alter  the  whole  aspect  of  life.  An  emotion,  which 
was  a  curious  mixture  of  superstitious  terror  and 
religious  faith,  swept  over  her,  reviving  and  invigorating 
her  heart.  She  had  abased  herself  in  the  dust  before 
God  —  she  had  offered  all  her  life  to  Him  if  He 
would  spare  her  child  —  and  had  He  not  answered? 
Might  not  Harry's  illness,  indeed,  have  been  sent  to 
punish  her  for  her  neglect?  A  shudder  of  abhorrence 
passed  through  her  as  she  remembered  the  fox-hunt, 
and  her  passion  of  jealousy.  The  roll  of  blue  silk, 
lying  upstairs  in  a  closet  in  the  third  storey,  appeared 
to  her  now  not  as  a  temptation  to  vanity,  but  as  a 
reminder  of  the  mortal  sin  which  had  almost  cost  her 
the  life  of  her  child.  And  suppose  God  had  not  stopped 
her  in  time  —  suppose  she  had  gone  to  Atlantic  City 
as  Oliver  had  begged  her  to  do? 

In  the  room  the  light  faded  softly,  melting  first 
like  frost  from  the  mirror  in  the  corner  beyond  the 
Japanese  screen,  creeping  slowly  across  the  marble 
surface  of  the  washstand,  lingering,  in  little  ripples, 
on  the  green  sash  of  the  windowsill.  Out  of  doors 
it  was  still  day,  and  from  where  she  sat  by  Harry's 
bed,  she  could  see,  under  the  raised  tent,  every  detail 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  353 

of  the  street  standing  out  distinctly  in  the  grey  twi 
light.  Across  the  way  the  houses  were  beginning  to 
show  lights  at  the  windows,  and  the  old  lamplighter 
was  balancing  himself  unsteadily  on  his  ladder  at  the 
corner.  On  the  mulberry  tree  near  the  crossing  the 
broad  bronze  leaves  swung  back  and  forth  in  the  wind, 
which  sighed  restlessly  around  the  house  and  drove 
the  naked  tendrils  of  a  summer  vine  against  the  green 
shutters  at  the  window.  The  fire  had  gone  down,  and 
after  she  had  made  it  up  very  softly,  she  bent  over 
Harry  again,  as  if  she  feared  that  he  might  have 
slipped  out  of  her  grasp  while  she  had  crossed  the  room. 

"If  he  only  lives,  I  will  let  everything  else  go.  I 
will  think  of  nothing  except  my  children.  It  will 
make  no  difference  to  me  if  I  do  look  ten  years  older 
than  Abby  does.  Nothing  on  earth  will  make  any 
difference  to  me,  if  only  God  will  let  him  get  well." 

And  with  the  vow,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  laid 
her  youth  down  on  the  altar  of  that  unseen  Power 
whose  mercy  she  invoked.  Let  her  prayer  only  be 
heard  and  she  would  demand  nothing  more  of  life  — 
she  would  spend  all  her  future  years  in  the  willing 
service  of  love.  Was  it  possible  that  she  had  imagined 
herself  unhappy  thirty-six  hours  ago  —  thirty-six 
hours  ago  when  her  child  was  not  threatened?  As  she 
looked  back  on  her  past  life,  it  seemed  to  her  that 
every  minute  had  been  crowned  with  happiness. 
Even  the  loss  of  her  newborn  baby  appeared  such  a 
little  thing  —  such  a  little  thing  beside  the  loss  of 
Harry,  her  only  son.  Mere  freedom  from  anxiety 
showed  to  her  now  as  a  condition  of  positive  bliss. 

Six  o'clock  struck,  and  Marthy  knocked  at  the  door 
with  a  cup  of  milk. 


354  VIRGINIA 

"Do  you  think  he'll  be  able  to  sw  alow  any  of  it?" 
she  asked,  and  there  were  tears  in  her  eyes. 

"He  is  better,  Marthy,  I  am  sure  he  is  better.  Has 
mother  been  here  this  afternoon?" 

"She  stopped  at  the  door,  but  she  didn't  like  to 
come  in  on  account  of  the  children.  They  are  both 
well,  she  says,  and  send  you  their  love.  Do  you  want 
any  more  water  in  the  kettle,  ma'am?" 

The  kettle,  which  was  simmering  away  beside 
Harry's  bed,  under  the  tent  of  sheets,  was  passed  to 
Marthy  through  the  crack  in  the  door;  and  when 
in  a  few  minutes  the  girl  returned  with  fresh  water, 
Virginia  whispered  to  her  that  he  had  taken  three 
spoonfuls  of  milk. 

"And  he  let  me  mop  his  throat  with  turpentine," 
she  said  in  quivering  tones.  "I  am  sure  —  oh,  I  am 
sure  he  is  better." 

"I  am  praying  every  minute,"  replied  Marthy, 
weeping;  and  it  seemed  suddenly  to  Virginia  that  a 
wave  of  understanding  passed  between  her  and  the 
ignorant  mulatto  girl,  whom  she  had  always  regarded 
as  of  different  clay  from  herself.  With  that  miraculous 
power  of  grief  to  level  all  things,  she  felt  that  the 
barriers  of  knowledge,  of  race,  of  all  the  pitiful  superi 
orities  with  which  human  beings  have  obscured  and 
decorated  the  underlying  spirit  of  life,  had  melted 
back  into  the  nothingness  from  which  they  had  emerged 
in  the  beginning.  This  feeling  of  oneness,  which 
would  have  surprised  and  startled  her  yesterday, 
appeared  so  natural  to  her  now,  that,  after  the  first 
instant  of  recognition,  she  hardly  thought  of  it  again. 

"Thank  you,  Marthy,"  she  answered  gently,  and 
closing  the  door,  went  back  to  her  chair  under  the 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  355 

raised  corner  of  the  sheet.  When  the  doctor  came 
at  nine  o'clock  she  was  sitting  there,  in  the  same 
position,  so  still  and  tense  that  she  seemed  hardly 
to  be  breathing,  so  ashen  grey  that  the  sheet  hanging 
above  her  head  showed  deadly  white  by  contrast 
with  her  face.  In  those  three  hours  she  knew  that 
the  clinging  tendrils  of  personal  desire  had  relaxed 
their  hold  forever  on  life  and  youth. 

"If  he  doesn't  get  worse,  we'll  pull  through,"  said 
the  doctor,  turning  from  his  examination  of  Harry  to 
lay  his  hand,  which  felt  as  heavy  as  lead,  on  her 
shoulder.  "We've  an  even  chance  —  if  his  heart 
doesn't  go  back  on  us."  And  he  added,  "Most 
mothers  are  good  nurses,  Jinny,  but  I  never  saw  a  bet 
ter  one  than  you  are  —  unless  it  was  your  own  mother. 
You  get  it  from  her,  I  reckon.  I  remember  when 
you  went  through  diphtheria  how  she  sent 
your  father  to  stay  with  one  of  the  neighbours, 
and  shut  herself  up  with  old  Ailsey  to  nurse  you. 
I  don't  believe  she  undressed  or  closed  her  eyes  for 
a  week." 

Her  own  mother!  So  she  was  not  the  only  one 
who  had  suffered  this  anguish  —  other  women,  many 
women,  had  been  through  it  before  she  was  born. 
It  was  a  part  of  that  immemorial  pang  of  mother 
hood  of  which  the  old  doctor  had  spoken.  "But, 
was  I  ever  in  danger?  Was  I  as  ill  as  Harry?"  she 
asked. 

"For  twenty-four  hours  we  thought  you'd  slip 
through  our  fingers  every  minute.  'Twas  only  your 
mother's  nursing  that  kept  you  alive  —  I've  told  her 
that  twenty  times.  She  never  spared  herself  an 
instant,  and,  it  may  have  been  my  imagination,  but 


356  VIRGINIA 

she  never  seemed  to  me  to  be  the  same  woman  after 
wards.  Something  had  gone  out  of  her." 

Now  she  understood,  now  she  knew,  something 
had  gone  out  of  her,  also,  and  this  something  was 
youth.  No  woman  who  had  fought  with  death  for 
a  child  could  ever  be  the  same  afterwards  —  could 
ever  value  again  the  small  personal  joys,  when  she 
carried  the  memory  of  supreme  joy  or  supreme 
anguish  buried  within  her  heart.  She  remembered 
that  her  mother  had  never  seemed  young  to  her,  not 
even  in  her  earliest  childhood;  and  she  understood 
now  why  this  had  been  so,  why  the  deeper  experi 
ences  of  life  rob  the  smaller  ones  of  all  vividness,  of 
all  poignancy.  It  had  been  so  easy  for  her  mother 
to  give  up  little  things,  to  deny  herself,  to  do  without, 
to  make  no  further  demands  on  life  after  the  great 
demands  had  been  granted  her.  How  often  had  she 
said  unthinkingly  in  her  girlhood,  "Mother,  you  never 
want  anything  for  yourself."  Ah,  she  knew  now 
what  it  meant,  and  with  the  knowledge  a  longing 
seized  her  to  throw  herself  into  her  mother's  arms, 
to  sob  out  her  understanding  and  her  sympathy, 
to  let  her  feel  before  it  was  too  late  that  she  compre 
hended  every  step  of  the  way,  every  throb  of  the  agony ! 

"I'd  spend  the  night  with  you,  Jinny,  if  I  didn't 
have  to  be  with  Milly  Carrington,  who  has  two  chil 
dren  down  with  it,"  said  the  doctor;  "but  if  there's  any 
change,  get  Marthy  to  come  for  me.  If  not,  I'll  be 
sure  to  look  in  again  before  daybreak." 

When  he  had  gone,  she  moved  the  night  lamp  to 
the  corner  of  the  washstand,  and  after  swallowing 
hastily  a  cup  of  coffee  which  Marthy  had  brought  to 
her  before  the  doctor's  visit,  and  which  had  grown 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  357 

quite  tepid  and  unpalatable,  she  resumed  her  patient 
watch  under  the  raised  end  of  the  sheet.  The  whole 
of  life,  the  whole  of  the  universe  even,  had  narrowed 
down  for  her  into  that  faint  circle  of  light  which  the 
lamp  drew  around  Harry's  little  bed.  It  was  as 
if  this  narrow  circle  beat  with  a  separate  pulse, 
divided  from  the  rest  of  existence  by  its  intense,  its 
throbbing  vitality.  Here  was  concentrated  for  her 
all  that  the  world  had  to  offer  of  hope,  fear,  rapture, 
or  anguish.  The  littleness  and  the  terrible  signifi 
cance  of  the  individual  destiny  were  gathered  into 
that  faintly  quivering  centre  of  space  —  so  small  a 
part  of  the  universe,  and  yet  containing  the  whole 
universe  within  itself! 

Outside,  in  the  street,  she  could  see  a  half-bared 
bough  of  the  mulberry  tree,  arching  against  a  square 
of  window,  from  which  the  white  curtains  were  drawn 
back;  and  in  order  to  quiet  her  broken  and  disjointed 
thoughts,  she  began  to  count  the  leaves  as  they  fell, 
one  by  one,  turning  softly  at  the  stem,  and  then 
floating  out  into  the  darkness  beyond.  "One.  Two. 
How  long  that  leaf  takes  to  loosen.  He  is  better. 
The  doctor  certainly  thought  that  he  was  better.  If 
he  only  gets  well.  O  God,  let  him  get  well,  and  I  will 
serve  you  all  my  life !  Three  —  four  —  five  —  For 
twenty-four  hours  we  thought  you  would  slip  through 
our  fingers.  Somebody  said  that  —  somebody  —  it 
must  have  been  the  doctor.  And  he  was  talking  of 
me,  not  of  Harry.  That  was  twenty-six  years  ago, 
and  my  mother  was  enduring  then  all  this  agony  that 
I  am  feeling  to-night.  Twenty-six  years  ago  —  per 
haps  at  this  very  hour,  she  sat  beside  me  alone  as  I 
am  sitting  now  by  Harry.  And  before  that  other 


358  VIRGINIA 

women  went  through  it.  All  the  world  over,  wherever 
there  are  mothers  —  north,  south,  east,  west  —  from 
the  first  baby  that  was  born  on  the  earth  —  they  have 
every  one  suffered  what  I  am  suffering  now  —  for  it 
is  the  pang  of  motherhood!  To  escape  it  one  must 
escape  birth  and  escape  the  love  that  is  greater  than 
one's  self."  And  she  understood  suddenly  that  suffering 
and  love  are  inseparable,  that  when  one  loves  another 
more  than  one's  self,  one  has  opened  the  gate  by 
which  anguish  will  enter.  She  had  forgotten  to  count 
the  leaves,  and  when  she  remembered  and  looked 
again,  the  last  one  had  fallen.  Against  the  parted 
white  curtains,  the  naked  bough  arched  black  and 
solitary.  Even  the  small  silent  birds  that  had  swayed 
dejectedly  to  and  fro  on  the  branches  all  day  had 
flown  off  into  the  darkness.  Presently,  the  light  in 
the  window  went  out,  and  as  the  hours  wore  on,  a 
fine  drizzling  rain  began  to  fall,  as  soft  as  tears,  from 
the  starless  sky  over  the  mulberry  tree.  A  sense  of 
isolation  greater  than  any  she  had  ever  known  attacked 
her  like  a  physical  chill,  and  rising,  she  went  over  to 
the  fire  and  stirred  the  pile  of  coal  into  a  flame.  She 
was  alone  in  her  despair,  and  she  realized,  with  a 
feeling  of  terror,  that  one  is  always  alone  when  one 
despairs,  that  there  is  a  secret  chamber  in  every 
soul  where  neither  love  nor  sympathy  can  follow  one. 
If  Oliver  were  here  beside  her  —  if  he  were  standing 
close  to  her  in  that  throbbing  circle  around  the  bed  — 
she  would  still  be  separated  from  him  by  the  immensity 
of  that  inner  space  which  is  not  measured  by  physical 
distances.  "No,  even  if  he  were  here,  he  could  not 
reach  me,"  she  said,  and  an  instant  later,  with  one 
of  those  piercing  illuminations  which  visit  even  per- 


THE  PANG  OF  MOTHERHOOD  359 

fectly  normal  women  in  moments  of  great  intensity, 
she  thought  quickly,  "If  every  woman  told  the  truth 
to  herself,  would  she  say  that  there  is  something  in 
her  which  love  has  never  reached?"  Then,  reproach 
ing  herself  because  she  had  left  the  bed  for  a  minute, 
she  went  back  again  and  bent  over  the  unconscious 
child,  her  whole  slender  body  curving  itself  passion 
ately  into  an  embrace.  His  face  was  ashen  white, 
except  where  the  skin  around  his  mouth  was  dis 
coloured  with  a  faint  bluish  tinge.  His  flesh,  even 
his  bones,  appeared  to  have  shrunk  almost  away 
in  twenty-four  hours.  It  was  impossible  to  imagine 
that  he  was  the  rosy,  laughing  boy,  who  had  crawled 
into  her  arms  only  two  nights  ago.  The  disease  held 
him  like  some  unseen  spiritual  enemy,  against  which 
all  physical  weapons  were  as  useless  as  the  little  toys 
of  a  child.  How  could  one  fight  that  sinister  power 
which  had  removed  him  to  an  illimitable  distance  while 
he  was  still  in  her  arms?  The  troubled  stupor,  which 
had  in  it  none  of  the  quiet  and  the  restfulness  of 
sleep,  terrorized  her  as  utterly  as  if  it  had  been  the 
personal  spirit  of  evil.  The  invisible  forces  of  Life 
and  Death  seemed  battling  in  the  quivering  air  within 
that  small  circle  of  light. 

While  she  bent  over  him,  he  stirred,  raised  himself, 
and  then  fell  back  in  a  paroxysm  of  coughing.  The 
violence  of  the  spasm  shook  his  fragile  little  body  as 
a  rough  wind  shakes  a  flower  on  a  stalk.  Over  his 
face  the  bluish  tinge  spread  like  a  shadow,  and  into 
his  eyes  there  came  the  expression  of  wondering 
terror  which  she  had  seen  before  only  in  the  eyes  of 
young  startled  animals.  For  an  instant  it  seemed 
almost  as  if  the  devil  of  disease  were  wrestling  inside 


360  VIRGINIA 

of  him,  as  if  the  small  vital  force  she  called  life 
would  be  beaten  out  in  the  struggle.  Then  the  agony 
passed;  the  strangling  sound  ceased,  and  he  grew 
quiet,  while  she  wiped  the  poison  from  his  mouth  and 
nostrils,  and  made  him  swallow  a  few  drops  of  milk 
out  of  a  teaspoon. 

At  the  moment,  while  she  fell  on  her  knees  by  his 
bedside,  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  had  reached  that 
deep  place  beyond  which  there  is  nothing. 


"You've  pulled  him  through.  We'll  have  him  out 
of  bed  before  many  days  now,"  said  the  old  doctor 
at  daybreak,  and  he  added  cheerfully,  "By  the  way, 
your  husband  came  in  the  front  door  with  me.  He 
wanted  to  rush  up  here  at  once,  but  I'm  keeping  him 
away  because  he  is  obliged  to  go  back  to  the  bank." 

"Poor  Oliver,"  said  Virginia  gently.  "It  is  terrible 
on  him.  He  must  be  so  anxious."  But  even  while 
she  uttered  the  words,  she  was  conscious  of  a  curious 
sensation  of  unreality,  as  though  she  were  speaking 
of  a  person  whom  she  had  known  in  another  life. 
It  was  three  days  since  she  had  seen  Oliver,  and  in 
those  three  days  she  had  lived  and  died  many  times. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH 

"FATHER,  I  want  to  marry  John  Henry,"  said 
Susan,  just  as  she  had  said  almost  ten  years  ago, 
"Father,  I  want  to  go  to  college." 

It  was  a  March  afternoon,  ashen  and  windy,  with 
flocks  of  small  fleecy  clouds  hurrying  across  a  change 
able  blue  sky,  and  the  vague,  roving  scents  of  early 
spring  in  the  air.  After  his  dinner,  which  he  had 
taken  for  more  than  fifty  years  precisely  at  two  o'clock, 
Cyrus  had  sat  down  for  a  peaceful  pipe  on  the 
back  porch  before  returning  to  the  office.  Be 
tween  the  sunken  bricks  in  the  little  walled-in 
yard,  blades  of  vivid  green  grass  had  shot  up, 
seeking  light  out  of  darkness,  and  along  the  grey 
wooden  ledge  of  the  area  the  dauntless  sunflowers 
were  unfolding  their  small  stunted  leaves.  On  the 
railing  of  the  porch  a  moth-eaten  cat  —  the  only 
animal  for  whom  Cyrus  entertained  the  remotest 
respect  —  was  contentedly  licking  the  shabby  fur  on 
her  side. 

"Father,  I  want  to  marry  John  Henry,"  repeated 
Susan,  raising  her  voice  to  a  higher  key  and  towering 
like  a  flesh  and  blood  image  of  Victory  over  the  sagging 
cane  chair  in  which  he  sat. 

Taking  his  pipe  from  his  mouth,  he  looked  up  at  her; 
and  so  little  had  he  altered  in  ten  years,  that  the 

361 


362  VIRGINIA 

thought  flashed  through  her  mind  that  he  had  actually 
suffered  no  change  of  expression  since  the  afternoon  on 
which  she  had  asked  him  to  send  her  to  college.  As 
a  man  he  may  not  have  been  impressive,  but  as 
a  defeating  force  who  could  say  that  he  had  not 
attained  his  fulfilment?  It  was  as  if  the  instinct 
of  patriarchal  tyranny  had  entrenched  itself  in  his 
person  as  in  a  last  stronghold  of  the  disappearing 
order.  When  he  died  many  things  would  pass  away 
out  of  Dinwiddie  —  not  only  the  soul  and  body  of 
Cyrus  Tread  well,  but  the  vanishing  myth  of  the 
"strong  man,"  the  rule  of  the  individual  despot, 
the  belief  in  the  inalienable  right  of  the  father  to 
demand  blood  sacrifices.  For  in  common  with  other 
men  of  his  type,  he  stood  equally  for  industrial 
advancement  and  for  domestic  immobility.  The  body 
social  might  move,  but  the  units  that  formed  the  body 
social  must  remain  stationary. 

"Well,  I  don't  think  I'd  worry  about  marrying,  if 
I  were  you,"  he  replied,  not  unkindly,  for  Susan  in 
spired  him  with  a  respect  against  which  he  had  strug 
gled  in  vain.  "You  are  very  comfortable  now,  ain't 
you?  And  I'll  see  that  you  are  well  provided  for  after 
my  death.  John  Henry  hasn't  anything  except  his 
salary,  I  reckon." 

Marriage  as  an  economic  necessity  was  perfectly 
comprehensible  to  him,  but  it  was  difficult  for  him  to 
conceive  of  anybody  indulging  in  it  simply  as  a  matter 
of  sentiment.  That  April  afternoon  was  so  far  away 
now  that  it  had  ceased  to  exist  even  as  an  historical 
precedent. 

"Yes,  but  I  want  to  marry  him,  and  I  am  going  to," 
replied  Susan  decisively. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  363 

"What  arrangements  would  you  make  about  your 
mother?  It  seems  to  me  that  your  mother  needs  your 
attention." 

"Of  course  I  couldn't  leave  mother.  If  you  agree 
to  it,  John  Henry  is  willing  to  come  here  to  live  as 
long  as  I  have  to  look  after  her.  If  not,  I  shall  take 
her  away  with  me;  I  have  spoken  to  her,  and  she  is 
perfectly  willing  to  go." 

The  ten  years  which  had  left  Cyrus  at  a  standstill 
had  developed  his  daughter  from  a  girl  into  a  woman. 
She  spoke  with  the  manner  of  one  who  realizes  that  she 
holds  the  situation  in  her  hands,  and  he  yielded  to  this 
assumption  of  strength  as  he  would  have  yielded  ten 
years  ago  had  she  been  clever  enough  to  use  it  against 
him.  It  was  his  own  manner  in  a  more  attractive 
guise,  if  he  had  only  known  it;  and  the  Treadwell 
determination  to  get  the  thing  it  wanted  most  was 
asserting  itself  in  Susan's  desire  to  win  John  Henry 
quite  as  effectively  as  it  had  asserted  itself  in  Cyrus's 
passion  to  possess  the  Dinwiddie  and  Central  Railroad. 
Though  the  ends  were  different,  the  quality  which 
moved  father  and  daughter  towards  these  different 
ends  was  precisely  the  same.  In  Cyrus,  it  was  force 
degraded;  in  Susan,  it  was  force  refined;  but  the 
peculiar  attribute  which  distinguished  and  united 
them  was  the  possession  of  the  power  to  command 
events. 

"Take  your  mother  away?"  he  repeated.  "Why, 
where  on  earth  would  you  take  her?  " 

"Then  you'll  have  to  agree  to  John  Henry's  coming 
here.  It  won't  make  any  difference  to  you,  of  course. 
You  needn't  see  him  except  at  the  table." 

"But  what  would  James  say  about  it?"  he  returned, 


364  VIRGINIA 

with  the  cowardice  natural  to  the  habitual  bully.  The 
girl  had  character,  certainly,  and  though  he  disliked 
character  in  a  woman,  he  was  obliged  to  admit  that 
she  had  not  failed  to  make  an  impression. 

"James  won't  care,  and  besides,"  she  added  mag 
nificently,  "it  is  none  of  his  business." 

"And  it's  none  of  mine,  either,  I  reckon,"  said 
Cyrus,  with  a  chuckle. 

"Well,  of  course,  it's  more  of  mine,"  agreed  Susan, 
and  her  delicious  laugh  drowned  his  chuckle. 

She  had  won  her  point,  and  strange  to  say,  she  had 
pleased  him  rather  than  otherwise.  He  had  suddenly 
a  comfortable  feeling  in  his  digestive  organs  as  well 
as  a  sense  of  virtue  in  his  soul.  It  was  impossible 
not  to  feel  proud  of  her  as  she  towered  there  above  him 
with  her  superb  body,  as  fine  and  as  supple  as  the 
body  of  a  race  horse,  and  her  splendid  courage  that 
made  him  wish  while  he  looked  at  her  that  she, 
instead  of  James,  had  been  born  a  male.  She  was 
not  pretty  —  she  had  never  been  pretty  —  but  he  real 
ized  for  the  first  time  that  there  might  be  something 
better  even  for  a  woman  than  beauty. 

"Thank  you,  father,"  she  said  as  she  turned  away, 
and  he  was  glad  again  to  feel  that  she  had  conquered 
him.  To  be  conquered  by  one's  own  blood  was  dif 
ferent  from  being  conquered  by  a  business  acquaint 
ance. 

"You  mustn't  disturb  the  household,  you  know," 
he  said,  but  his  voice  did  not  sound  as  dry  as  he  had 
endeavoured  to  make  it. 

"I  shan't  disturb  anybody,"  responded  Susan, 
with  the  amiability  of  a  woman  who,  having  gained 
her  point,  can  afford  to  be  pleasant.  Then,  wheeling 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  365 

about  suddenly  on  the  threshold,  she  added,  "By  the 
way,  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  Mandy  was  here 
three  times  this  morning  asking  to  see  you.  She  is 
in  trouble  about  her  son.  He  was  arrested  for  shoot 
ing  a  policeman  over  at  Cross's  Corner,  you  know, 
and  the  people  down  there  are  so  enraged,  she's  afraid 
of  a  lynching.  You  read  about  it  in  the  paper, 
didn't  you?" 

Yes,  he  had  read  about  the  shooting  —  Cross's 
Corner  was  only  three  miles  away  —  but,  if  he  had 
ever  known  the  name  of  Mandy's  son,  he  had  forgotten 
it  so  completely  that  seeing  it  in  print  had  suggested 
nothing  to  his  mind. 

"Well,  she  doesn't  expect  me  to  interfere,  does 
she?"  he  asked  shortly. 

"I  believe  she  thought  you  might  go  over  and  do 
something  —  I  don't  know  what  —  help  her  engage 
a  lawyer  probably.  She  was  very  pitiable,  but  after 
all,  what  can  one  do  for  a  negro  that  shoots  a  police 
man?  There's  Miss  Willy  calling  me!" 

She  ran  indoors,  and  taking  his  pipe,  which  was  still 
smoking,  trom  his  mouth,  Cyrus  leaned  back  in  his 
chair  and  stared  intently  at  the  small  fleecy  clouds  in 
the  west.  The  cat,  having  cleaned  herself  to  her 
satisfaction,  jumped  down  from  the  railing,  and  after 
rubbing  against  his  thin  legs,  leaped  gently  into 
his  lap. 

"Tut-tut!"  he  remarked  grimly;  but  he  did  not 
attempt  to  dislodge  the  animal,  and  it  may  be  that 
some  secret  part  of  him  was  gratified  by  the  attention. 
He  was  still  sitting  there  some  minutes  later,  when 
he  heard  the  warning  click  of  the  back  gate,  and 
the  figure  of  Mandy,  appeared  at  the  corner  of  the 


366  VIRGINIA 

kitchen  wall.  Rising  from  his  chair,  he  shook  the 
cat  from  his  knees,  and  descending  the  steps,  met 
the  woman  in  the  centre  of  the  walk,  where  a  few 
hardy  dandelions  were  flattened  like  buttons  between 
the  bricks. 

"Howdy,  Mandy.  I'm  sorry  to  hear  that  you're 
having  trouble  with  that  boy  of  yours."  He  saw  at 
once  that  she  was  racked  by  a  powerful  emotion,  and 
any  emotion  affected  him  unpleasantly  as  something 
extravagant  and  indecent.  Sweat  had  broken  out 
in  glistening  clusters  over  her  face  and  neck,  and 
her  eyes,  under  the  stray  wisps  of  hair,  had  in  them 
an  expression  of  dumb  and  uncomprehending  sub 
mission. 

"Ain't  you  gwineter  git  'im  away,  Marster?"  she 
began,  and  stronger  even  than  her  terror  was  the  awe 
of  Cyrus  which  subdued  her  voice  to  a  tone  of  servile 
entreaty. 

"Why  did  he  shoot  a  policeman?  He  knew  he'd 
hang  for  it,"  returned  Cyrus  sharply,  and  he  added, 
"Of  course  I  can't  get  him  away.  He'll  have  to  take 
his  deserts.  Your  race  has  got  to  learn  that  when 
you  break  the  law,  you  must  pay  for  it." 

At  first  he  had  made  as  if  to  push  by  her,  but  when 
she  did  not  move,  he  thought  better  of  it  and  waited 
for  her  to  speak.  The  sound  of  her  heavy  breathing, 
like  the  breathing  of  some  crouching  beast,  awoke  in 
him  a  curious  repulsion.  If  only  one  could  get  rid  of 
such  creatures  after  their  first  youth  was  over!  If  only 
every  careless  act  could  perish  with  the  impulse  that 
led  to  it!  If  only  the  dried  husks  of  pleasure  did  not 
turn  to  weapons  against  one!  These  thoughts  —  or 
disjointed  snatches  of  thoughts  like  these  —  passed 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  367 

in  a  confused  whirl  through  his  brain  as  he  stood  there. 
For  an  instant  it  was  almost  as  if  his  accustomed 
lucidity  of  purpose  had  deserted  him;  then  the  dis 
turbance  ceased,  and  with  the  renewal  of  order  in 
his  mind,  his  life-long  habit  of  prompt  decision  re 
turned  to  him. 

"Your  race  has  got  to  learn  that  when  you  break 
the  law  you  must  pay  for  it,"  he  repeated — for 
on  that  sound  principle  of  justice  he  felt  that  he  must 
unalterably  take  his  stand. 

"He's  all  de  boy  I'se  got,  Marster,"  rejoined  the 
negress,  with  an  indifference  to  the  matter  of  justice 
which  had  led  others  of  her  colour  into  those  subter 
ranean  ways  where  abstract  principles  are  not.  "You 
ain'  done  furgot  'im,  Marster,"  she  added  piteously. 
"He  'uz  born  jes  two  mont's  atter  Miss  Lindy  turnt 
me  outer  hyer  —  en  he's  jes  ez  w'ite  ez  ef 'n  he  b'longed 
ter  w'ite  folks." 

But  she  had  gone  too  far  —  she  had  outraged  that 
curious  Anglo-Saxon  instinct  in  Cyrus  which  permitted 
him  to  sin  against  his  race's  integrity,  yet  forbade  him 
to  acknowledge,  even  to  himself,  that  he  bore  any  part 
in  the  consequences  of  that  sin.  Illogical,  he  might 
have  admitted,  but  there  are  some  truths  so  poisonous 
that  no  honest  man  could  breathe  the  same  air  with 
them. 

Taking  out  his  pocket-book,  he  slowly  drew  a  fifty 
dollar  bill  from  its  innermost  recesses,  and  as  slowly 
unfolded  it.  He  always  handled  money  in  that  careful 
fashion  —  a  habit  which  he  had  inherited  from  his 
father  and  his  grandfather  before  him,  and  of  which 
he  was  entirely  unconscious.  Filtering  down  through 
so  many  generations,  the  mannerism  had  ceased  at  last 


368  VIRGINIA 

to  be  merely  a  physical  peculiarity,  and  had  become 
strangely  spiritual  in  its  suggestion.  The  craving 
for  possession,  the  singleness  of  desire,  the  tenacity  of 
grasp,  the  dread  of  relinquishment,  the  cold-blooded 
determination  to  keep  intact  the  thing  which  it  had 
cost  so  much  to  acquire  —  all  that  was  bound  up  in  the 
spirit  of  Cyrus  Treadwell,  and  all  that  would  pass  at 
last  with  that  spirit  from  off  the  earth,  was  expressed  in 
the  gesture  with  which  he  held  out  the  bit  of  paper  to 
the  woman  who  had  asked  for  his  help.  "Take  this  — 
it  is  all  I  can  do  for  you,"  he  said,  "and  don't  come 
wh  ning  around  me  any  more.  Black  or  white,  the 
man  that  commits  a  murder  has  got  to  hang  for  it." 

A  sound  broke  from  the  negress  that  resembled  a 
human  cry  of  grief  less  than  it  did  the  inarticulate 
moan  of  an  animal  in  mortal  pain.  Then  it  stopped 
suddenly,  strangled  by  that  dull  weight  of  usage 
beneath  which  the  primal  impulse  in  her  was  crushed 
back  into  silence.  Instinctively,  as  if  in  obedience  to 
some  reflex  action,  she  reached  out  and  took  the  money 
from  his  hand,  and  still  instinctively,  with  the  dazed 
look  of  one  who  performs  in  delirium  the  customary 
movements  of  every  day,  she  fell  back,  holding  her 
apron  deprecatingly  aside  while  he  brushed  past  her. 
And  in  her  eyes  as  she  gazed  after  him  there  dawned 
the  simple  wonder  of  the  brute  that  asks  of  Life  why 
it  suffers. 

Beyond  the  alley  into  which  the  gate  opened,  Cyrus 
caught  sight  of  Gabriel's  erect  figure  hurrying  down 
the  side  street  in  the  direction  of  the  Old  Ladies'  Home, 
and  calling  out  to  him,  he  scrambled  over  the  ash  heaps 
and  tomato  cans,  and  emerged,  irritated  but  smiling, 
into  the  sunlight. 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH     369 

"I'm  on  my  way  to  the  bank.  We'll  walk  down  to 
gether,"  he  remarked  almost  gently,  for,  though  he 
disapproved  of  Gabriel's  religious  opinions  and  dis 
trusted  his  financial  judgment,  the  war-like  little  rector 
represented  the  single  romance  of  his  life. 

"I  had  intended  stopping  at  the  Old  Ladies'  Home, 
but  I'll  go  on  with  you  instead,"  responded  Gabriel. 
"I've  just  had  a  message  from  one  of  our  old  servants 
calling  me  down  to  Cross's  Corner,"  he  pursued,  "so 
I'm  in  a  bit  of  a  hurry.  That's  a  bad  thing,  that 
murder  down  there  yesterday,  and  I'm  afraid  it  will 
mean  trouble  for  the  negroes.  Mr.  Ely  lie,  who  came  to 
market  this  morning,  told  me  a  crowd  had  tried  to 
lynch  the  fellow  last  night." 

"Well,  they've  got  to  hang  when  they  commit 
hanging  crimes,"  replied  Cyrus  stubbornly.  "There's 
no  way  out  of  that.  It's  just,  ain't  it?" 

"Yes,  I  suppose  so,"  admitted  Gabriel,  "though, 
for  my  part,  I've  a  feeling  against  capitaLpunishment  — 
except,  of  course,  in  cases  of  rape,  where,  I  confess,  my 
blood  turns  against  me." 

"An  eye  for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth  —  that's 
the  law  of  God,  ain't  it?" 

"The  old  law,  yes  —  but  why  not  quote  the  law  of 
Christ  instead?" 

"It  wouldn't  do  —  not  with  the  negroes,"  returned 
Cyrus,  who  entertained  for  the  Founder  of  Christianity 
something  of  the  sentimental  respect  mingled  with  an 
innate  distrust  of  His  common-sense  with  which  he 
regarded  His  disciple. 

"We  can't  condemn  it  until  we've  tried  it,"  said 
Gabriel  thoughtfully,  and  he  went  on  after  a  moment: 

"  The  terrible  thing  for  us  about  the  negroes  is  that 


370  VIRGINIA 

they  are  so  grave  a  responsibility  —  so  grave  a  re 
sponsibility.  Of  course,  we  aren't  to  blame  —  we 
didn't  bring  them  here;  and  yet  I  sometimes  feel  as  if 
we  had  really  done  so." 

This  was  a  point  of  view  which  Cyrus  had  never  con 
sidered,  and  he  felt  an  immediate  suspicion  of  it.  It 
looked,  somehow,  as  if  it  were  insidiously  leading  the 
way  to  an  appeal  for  money. 

"It's  the  best  thing  that  could  have  happened  to 
them,"  he  replied  shortly.  "If  they'd  remained  in 
Africa,  they'd  never  have  been  civilized  or  —  or 
Christianized." 

"Ah,  that  is  just  where  the  responsibility  rests  on  us. 
We  stand  for  civilization  to  them;  we  stand  even  —  or 
at  least  we  used  to  stand  —  for  Christianity.  They 
haven't  learned  yet  to  look  above  or  beyond  us,  and 
the  example  we  set  them  is  one  that  they  are  con 
demned,  for  sheer  lack  of  any  finer  vision,  to  follow. 
The  majority  of  them  are  still  hardly  more  than  uned 
ucated  children,  and  that  very  fact  makes  an  appeal 
to  one's  compassion  which  becomes  at  times  almost 
unbearable." 

But  this  was  more  than  Cyrus  could  stand  even 
from  the  rector,  whose  conversation  he  usually  toler 
ated  because  of  the  perverse,  inexplicable  liking  he  felt 
for  the  man.  The  charm  that  Gabriel  exercised  over 
him  was  almost  feminine  in  its  subtlety  and  in  its  utter 
defiance  of  any  rational  sanction.  It  may  have  been 
that  his  nature,  incapable  though  it  was  of  love,  was 
not  entirely  devoid  of  the  rarer  capacity  for  friendship 
—  or  it  may  have  been  that,  with  the  inscrutable  irony 
which  appears  to  control  all  human  attractions,  the 
caged  brutality  in  his  heart  was  soothed  by  the  un- 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  371 

conscious  flattery  .of  the  other's  belief  in  him.  Now, 
however,  he  felt  that  Gabriel's  highfaluting  nonsense 
was  carrying  him  away.  It  was  well  enough  to  go  on 
like  that  in  the  pulpit;  but  on  week  days,  when  there 
was  business  to  think  of  and  every  minute  might  mean 
the  loss  of  a  dollar,  there  was  no  use  dragging  in  either 
religion  or  sentiment.  Had  he  put  his  thoughts 
plainly,  he  would  probably  have  said:  "That's  not 
business,  Gabriel.  The  trouble  with  you  —  and  with 
most  of  you  old-fashioned  Virginians  —  is  that  you 
don't  understand  the  first  principles  of  business." 
These  words,  indeed,  were  almost  on  his  lips,  when, 
catching  the  rector's  innocent  glance  wandering  round 
to  him,  he  contented  himself  with  remarking  satir- 
cally: 

"Well,  you  were  always  up  in  the  clouds.  It  doesn't 
hurt  you,  I  reckon,  though  I  doubt  if  it  does  much 
toward  keeping  your  pot  boiling." 

"I  must  turn  off  here,"  said  Gabriel  gently.  "It's 
the  shortest  way  to  Cross's  Corner." 

"Do  you  think  any  good  will  come  of  your  going?" 
"Probably  not  —  but  I  couldn't  refuse." 
Much  as  he  respected  Cyrus,  he  was  not  sorry  to 
part  from  him,  for  their  walk  together  had  left  him 
feeling  suddenly  old  and  incompetent  to  battle  with 
the  problems  of  life.  He  knew  that  Cyrus,  even  though 
he  liked  him,  considered  him  a  bit  of  a  fool,  and  with 
a  humility  which  was  unusual  in  him  (for  in  his  heart 
he  was  absolutely  sure  that  his  own  convictions  were 
right  and  that  Cyrus's  were  wrong)  he  began  to  ask 
himself  if,  by  any  chance,  the  other's  verdict  could 
be  secretly  justified.  Was  he  in  reality  the  failure 
that  Cyrus  believed  him  to  be?  Or  was  it  merely 


372  VIRGINIA 

that  he  had  drifted  into  that  "depressing  view"  of 
existence  against  which  he  so  earnestly  warned  his 
parishioners?  Perhaps  it  wasn't  Cyrus  after  all  who 
had  produced  this  effect.  Perhaps  the  touch  of  in 
digestion  he  had  felt  after  dinner  had  not  entirely 
disappeared.  Perhaps  it  meant  that  he  was  "getting 
on"  —  sixty-five  his  last  birthday.  Perhaps  —  but 
already  the  March  wind,  fresh  and  bud-scented,  was 
blowing  away  his  despondency.  Already  he  was 
beginning  to  feel  again  that  fortifying  conviction 
that  whatever  was  unpleasant  could  not  possibly  be 
natural. 

Ahead  of  him  the  straight  ashen  road  flushed  to  pale 
red  where  it  climbed  a  steep  hillside,  and  when  he 
gained  the  top,  the  country  lay  before  him  in  all 
the  magic  loveliness  of  early  spring.  Out  of  the 
rosy  earth  innumerable  points  of  tender  green  were 
visible  in  the  sunlight  and  invisible  again  beneath 
the  faintly  rippling  shadows  that  filled  the  hollows. 
From  every  bough,  from  every  bush,  from  every 
creeper  which  clung  trembling  to  the  rail  fences,  this 
wave  of  green,  bursting  through  the  sombre  covering 
of  winter,  quivered,  as  delicate  as  foam,  in  the  brilliant 
sunshine.  On  either  side  labourers  were  working,  and 
where  the  ploughs  pierced  the  soil  they  left  narrow 
channels  of  darkness. 

In  the  soul  of  Gabriel,  that  essence  of  the  spring, 
which  is  immortally  young  and  restless,  awakened 
and  gave  him  back  his  youth,  as  it  gave  the  new  grass 
to  the  fields  and  the  longing  for  joy  to  the  hearts  of  the 
ploughmen.  He  forgot  that  he  was  "getting  on." 
He  forgot  the  unnatural  depression  which  had  made 
him  imagine  for  a  moment  that  the  world  was  a  more 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  373 

difficult  place  than  he  had  permitted  himself  to  believe 
—  so  difficult  a  place,  indeed,  that  for  some  people 
there  could  be  no  solution  of  its  injustice,  its  brutality, 
its  dissonance,  its  inequalities.  The  rapture  in  the 
song  of  the  bluebirds  was  sweeter  than  the  voice  of 
Cyrus  to  which  he  had  listened.  And  in  a  meadow 
on  the  right,  an  old  grey  horse,  scarred,  dim-eyed, 
spavined,  stood  resting  one  crooked  leg,  while  he  gazed 
wistfully  over  the  topmost  rail  of  the  fence  into  the 
vivid  green  of  the  distance  —  for  into  his  aching  old 
bones,  also,  there  had  passed  a  little  of  that  longing 
for  joy  which  was  born  of  the  miraculous  softness  and 
freshness  of  the  spring.  To  him,  as  well  as  to  Gabriel 
and  to  the  ploughmen  and  to  the  bluebirds  flitting,  like 
bits  of  fallen  sky,  along  the  "snake  fences/'  Nature, 
the  great  healer,  had  brought  her  annual  gift  of  the 
resurrection  of  hope. 

"Cyrus  means  well,"  thought  Gabriel,  with  a  return 
of  that  natural  self-confidence  without  which  no  man 
can  exist  happily  and  make  a  living.  "He  means 
well,  but  he  takes  a  false  view  of  life."  And  he  added 
after  a  minute:  "It's  odd  how  the  commercial  spirit 
seems  to  suck  a  man  dry  when  it  once  gets  a  hold 
on  him." 

He  walked  on  rapidly,  leaving  the  old  horse  and  the 
ploughmen  behind  him,  and  around  his  energetic  little 
figure  the  grey  dust,  as  fine  as  powder,  spun  in  swirls 
and  eddies  before  the  driving  wind,  which  had 
grown  boisterous.  As  he  moved  there  alone  in  the 
deserted  road,  with  his  long  black  coat  flapping 
against  his  legs,  he  appeared  so  insignificant  and  so 
unheroic  that  an  observer  would  hardly  have  suspected 
that  the  greatest  belief  on  the  earth  —  the  belief  in 


374  VIRGINIA 

Life  —  in  its  universality  in  spite  of  its  littleness,  in  its 
justification  in  spite  of  its  cruelties  —  that  this  belief 
shone  through  his  shrunken  little  body  as  a  flame 
shines  through  a  vase. 

At  the  end  of  the  next  mile,  midway  between  Din- 
widdie  and  Cross's  Corner,  stood  the  small  log  cabin 
of  the  former  slave  who  had  sent  for  him,  and  as  he 
approached  the  narrow  path  that  led,  between  oyster 
shells,  from  the  main  road  to  the  single  flat  brown  rock 
before  the  doorstep,  he  noticed  with  pleasure  how  tran 
quil  and  happy  the  little  rustic  home  appeared  under 
the  windy  brightness  of  the  March  sky. 

"People  may  say  what  they  please,  but  there  never 
were  happier  or  more  contented  creatures  than  the 
darkeys,"  he  thought.  "I  doubt  if  there's  another 
peasantry  in  the  world  that  is  half  so  well  off  or  half  so 
picturesque." 

A  large  yellow  rooster,  pecking  crumbs  from  the 
threshold,  began  to  scold  shrilly,  and  at  the  sound,  the 
old  servant,  a  decrepit  negress  in  a  blue  gingham  dress, 
hobbled  out  into  the  path  and  stood  peering  at  him 
under  her  hollowed  palm.  Her  forehead  was  ridged 
and  furrowed  beneath  her  white  turban,  and  her 
bleared  old  eyes  looked  up  at  him  with  a  blind  and 
groping  effort  at  recognition. 

"I  got  your  message,  Aunt  Mehitable.  Don't  you 
know  me?" 

"Is  dat  you,  Marse  Gabriel?  I  made  sho'  you  wan' 
gwineter  let  nuttin'  stop  you  f 'om  comin'." 

"Don't  I  always  come  when  you  send  for  me?" 

"You  sutney  do,  suh.  Dat's  de  gospel  trufe  — 
you  sutney  do." 

As  he  looked  at  her  standing  there  in  the  strong 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  375 

sunlight,  with  her  palsied  hand,  which  was  gnarled  and 
roughened  until  it  resembled  the  shell  of  a  walnut, 
curving  over  her  eyes,  he  felt  that  a  quality  at  once 
alien  and  enigmatical  separated  her  not  only  from 
himself,  but  from  every  other  man  or  woman  who  was 
born  white  instead  of  black.  He  had  lived  beside  her 
all  his  life  —  and  yet  he  could  never  understand  her, 
could  never  reach  her,  could  never  even  discern  the 
hidden  stuff  of  which  she  was  made.  He  could  make 
laws  for  her,  but  no  child  of  a  white  mother  could  tell 
whether  those  laws  ever  penetrated  that  surface  im 
itation  of  the  superior  race  and  reached  the  innate 
differences  of  thought,  feeling,  and  memory  which 
constituted  her  being.  Was  it  development  or  mimicry 
that  had  brought  her  up  out  of  savagery  and  clothed 
her  in  her  blue  gingham  dress  and  her  white  turban, 
as  in  the  outward  covering  of  civilization? 

Her  look  of  crumbling  age  and  the  witch-like  grop 
ing  of  her  glance  had  cast  a  momentary  spell  over 
him.  When  it  was  gone,  he  said  cheerfully: 

"You  mustn't  be  having  troubles  at  your  time  of 
life,  Aunt  Mehitable,"  and  in  his  voice  there  was  the 
subtle  recognition  of  all  that  she  had  meant  to 
his  family  in  the  past,  of  all  that  his  family  had 
meant  to  her.  Her  claim  upon  him  was  the 
more  authentic  because  it  existed  only  in  his  im 
agination,  and  in  hers.  The  tie  that  knit  them  to 
gether  was  woven  of  impalpable  strands,  but  it  was 
unbreakable  while  he  and  his  generation  were  above 
the  earth. 

"Dar  am'  no  end  er  trouble,  Marse  Gabriel,  ez  long 
ez  dar's  yo'  chillen  en  de  chillen  er  yo*  chillen  ter 
come  at  ter  you.  De  ole  am'  so  techy  —  dey  lets  de 


376  VIRGINIA 

hornet's  nes'  hang  in  peace  whar  de  Lawd  put  hit- 
but  de  young  dey's  different." 

"I  suppose  the  neighbourhood  is  stirred  up  about 
the  murder.  What  in  God's  name  was  that  boy 
thinking  of?" 

The  old  blood  crimes  that  never  ceased  where  the 
white  and  the  black  races  came  together!  The  old 
savage  folly  and  the  new  freedom !  The  old  ignorance, 
the  old  lack  of  understanding,  and  the  new  restless 
ness,  the  new  enmity! 

"He  wan'  thinkin'  er  nuttin',  Marse  Gabriel.  We 
ole  uns  kin  set  down  en  steddy,  but  de  young  dey  up  en 
does  wid  dere  brains  ez  addled  ez  de  inside  uv  er 
bad  aig.  'T  wan'  dat  ar  way  in  de  old  days  w'en  we 
all  hed  de  say  so  ez  ter  w'at  wuz  en  w'at  wan't  de  way 
ter  behave." 

Like  an  institution  left  from  the  ruins  of  the  feudal 
system,  which  had  crumbled  as  all  ancient  and  de 
crepit  things  must  crumble  when  the  wheels  of  prog 
ress  roll  over  them,  she  stood  there  wrapped  in  the 
beliefs  and  customs  of  that  other  century  to  which 
she  belonged.  Her  sentiments  had  clustered  about 
the  past,  as  his  had  done,  until  the  border-line  between 
the  romance  and  the  actuality  had  vanished.  She 
could  not  help  him  because  she,  also,  possessed  the 
retrospective,  not  the  constructive,  vision.  He  was  not 
conscious  of  these  thoughts,  and  yet,  although  he  was 
unconscious  of  them,  they  coloured  his  reflections 
while  he  stood  there  in  the  sunlight,  which  had  be 
gun  to  fall  aslant  the  blasted  pine  by  the  roadside. 
The  wind  had  lowered  until  it  came  like  the  breath  of 
spring,  bud-scented,  caressing,  provocative.  Even 
Gabriel,  whose  optimism  lay  in  his  blood  and  bone 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  377 

rather  than  in  his  intellect,  yielded  for  a  moment 
to  this  call  of  the  spring  as  one  might  yield  to  the 
delicious  melancholy  of  a  vagrant  mood.  The  long 
straight  road,  without  bend  or  fork,  had  warmed  in  the 
paling  sunlight  to  the  colour  of  old  ivory;  in  a  neigh 
bouring  field  a  young  maple  tree  rose  in  a  flame  of  buds 
from  the  ridged  earth  where  the  ploughing  was  over; 
and  against  the  azure  sky  in  the  south  a  flock  of  birds 
drifted  up,  like  blown  smoke,  from  the  marshes. 

"Tell  me  your  trouble,  then,"  he  said,  dropping 
into  the  cane-seated  chair  she  had  brought  out  of 
the  cabin  and  placed  between  the  flat  stone  at  the 
doorstep  and  the  well-brink,  on  which  the  yellow 
rooster  stood  spreading  his  wings.  But  Aunt  Mehit- 
able  had  returned  to  the  cabin,  and  when  she  re 
appeared  she  was  holding  out  to  him  a  cracked  saucer 
on  which  there  was  a  piece  of  preserved  watermelon 
rind  and  a  pewter  spoon. 

"Dish  yer  is  de  ve'y  same  sort  er  preserves  yo'  mouf 
use'n  ter  water  fur  w'en  you  wuz  a  chile,"  she  re 
marked  as  she  handed  the  sweet  to  him.  Whatever 
her  anxiety  or  affliction  could  have  been,  the  im 
portance  of  his  visit  had  evidently  banished  it  from 
her  mind.  She  hovered  over  him  as  his  mother  may 
have  done  when  he  was  in  his  cradle,  while  the  cheer 
ful  self-effacement  in  which  slavery  had  trained  her 
lent  a  pathetic  charm  to  her  manner. 

"How  peaceful  it  looks,"  he  thought,  sitting  there, 
with  the  saucer  in  his  hand,  and  his  eyes  on  the  purple 
shadows  that  slanted  over  the  ploughed  fields.  "You 
have  a  good  view  of  the  low-grounds,  Aunt  Mehitable," 
he  said  aloud,  and  added  immediately,  "What's  that 
noise  in  the  road?  Do  you  hear  it?  " 


378  VIRGINIA 

The  old  woman  shook  her  head. 

"I'se  got  sorter  hard  er  heahin',  Marse  Gabriel,  but 
dar's  al'ays  a  tur'able  lot  er  fuss  gwine  on  w'en  de 
chillen  begin  ter  come  up  f 'om  de  fields.  'T  wuz  becase 
uv  oner  dem  ar  boys  dat  I  sont  fur  you,"  she  pursued. 
"He  went  plum  outer  his  haid  yestiddy  en  fout  wid 
a  w'ite  man  down  yonder  at  Cross's  Co'nder,  en  dar's 
gwine  ter  be  trouble  about'n  hit  des  ez  sho'  ez  you 
live." 

Seated  on  the  flat  stone,  with  her  hands  hanging 
over  her  knees,  and  her  turbaned  head  swaying  gently 
back  and  forth  as  she  talked,  she  waited  as  tranquilly 
as  the  rock  waited  for  the  inevitable  processes  of  nature. 
The  patience  in  her  look  was  the  dumb  patience  of 
inanimate  things;  and  her  half -bared  feet,  protruding 
from  the  broken  soles  of  her  shoes,  were  encrusted  with 
the  earth  of  the  fields  until  one  could  hardly  distinguish 
them  from  the  ground  on  which  they  rested. 

"It  looks  as  if  there  was  something  like  a  fight  down 
yonder  by  the  blasted  pine,"  said  the  rector,  rising 
from  his  chair.  "I  reckon  I'd  better  go  and  see  what 
they're  quarrelling  about." 

The  negress  rose  also,  and  her  dim  eyes  followed  him 
while  he  went  down  the  little  path  between  the  borders 
of  oyster  shells.  As  he  turned  into  the  open  stretch  of 
the  road,  he  glanced  back  at  her,  and  stopping  for  a  mo 
ment,  waved  his  hand  with  a  gesture  that  was  careless 
and  reassuring.  The  fight,  or  whatever  it  was  that 
made  the  noise,  was  still  some  distance  ahead  in  the 
shadow  of  the  pine-tree,  and  as  he  walked  towards  it 
he  was  thinking  casually  of  other  matters  —  of  the 
wretched  condition  of  the  road  after  the  winter  rains, 
of  the  need  of  greater  thrift  among  the  farmers,  both 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH     379 

white  and  black,  of  the  touch  of  indigestion  which  still 
troubled  him.  There  was  nothing  to  warn  him  that  he 
was  approaching  the  supreme  event  in  his  life,  noth 
ing  to  prepare  him  for  a  change  beside  which  all  the 
changes  of  the  past  would  appear  as  unsubstantial  as 
shadows.  His  soul  might  have  been  the  soul  in  the 
grass,  so  little  did  its  coming  or  its  going  affect  the 
forces  around  him. 

"If  this  shooting  pain  keeps  up,  I'll  have  to  get  a 
prescription  from  Doctor  Fraser,"  he  thought,  and  the 
next  minute  he  cried  out  suddenly:  "God  help  us!" 
and  began  to  run  down  the  road  in  the  direction  of  the 
blasted  pine.  There  was  hardly  a  breath  between  the 
instant  when  he  had  thought  of  his  indigestion  and  the 
instant  when  he  had  called  out  sharply  on  the  name  of 
God,  yet  that  flash  of  time  had  been  long  enough  to 
change  the  ordinary  man  into  the  hero.  The  spark  of 
greatness  in  his  nature  flamed  up  and  irradiated  all 
that  had  been  merely  dull  and  common  clay  a  moment 
before.  As  he  ran  on,  with  his  coat  tails  flapping 
around  him,  and  his  thin  legs  wobbling  from  the  un 
accustomed  speed  at  which  he  moved,  he  was  so  un- 
imposing  a  figure  that  only  the  Diety  who  judges  the 
motives,  not  the  actions,  of  men  would  have  been 
impressed  by  the  spectacle.  Even  the  three  hearty 
brutes  —  and  it  took  him  but  a  glance  to  see  that  two 
of  them  were  drunk,  and  that  the  third,  being  a  sober 
rascal,  was  the  more  dangerous  —  hardly  ceased  their 
merry  torment  of  the  young  negro  in  their  midst  when 
he  came  up  with  them. 

"I  know  that  boy,"  he  said.  "He  is  the  grand 
son  of  Aunt  Mehi table.  What  are  you  doing  with 
him?" 


380  VIRGINIA 

A  drunken  laugh  answered  him,  while  the  sober 
scoundrel  —  a  lank,  hairy  ne-er-do-well,  with  a  ten 
dency  to  epilepsy,  whose  name  he  remembered  to  have 
heard  —  pushed  him  roughly  to  the  roadside. 

"You  git  out  of  this  here  mess,  parson.  We're 
goin'  to  teach  this  damn  nigger  a  lesson,  and  I  reckon 
when  he's  learned  it  in  hell,  he  won't  turn  his  grin  on 
a  white  woman  again  in  a  jiffy." 

"Fo'  de  Lawd,  I  didn't  mean  nuttin',  Marster!" 
screamed  the  boy,  livid  with  terror.  "I  didn't  know 
de  lady  was  dar  —  fo'  de  Lawd  Jesus,  I  didn't!  My 
foot  jes  slipped  on  de  plank  w'en  I  wuz  crossin',  en 
I  knocked  up  agin  her." 

"He  jostled  her,"  observed  one  of  the  drunken  men 
judicially,  "an'  we'll  be  roasted  befo'  we'll  let  a  damn 
nigger  jostle  a  white  lady  —  even  if  she  ain't  a  lady  — 
in  these  here  parts." 

In  the  rector's  bone  and  fibre,  drilled  there  by  the 
ages  that  had  shaped  his  character  before  he  began 
to  be,  there  was  all  the  white  man's  horror  of  an  insult 
to  his  womankind.  But  deeper  even  than  this  lay  his 
personal  feeling  of  responsibility  for  any  creature  whose 
fathers  had  belonged  to  him  and  had  toiled  in  his 
service. 

"I  believe  the  boy  is  telling  the  truth,"  he  said, 
and  he  added  with  one  of  his  characteristic  bursts  of 
impulsiveness,  "but  whether  he  is  or  not,  you  are  too 
drunk  to  judge." 

There  was  going  to  be  a  battle,  he  saw,  and  in  the 
swiftness  with  which  he  discerned  this,  he  made  his 
eternal  choice  between  the  preacher  and  the  fighter. 
Stripping  off  his  coat,  he  reached  down  for  a  stick  from 
the  roadside;  then  spinning  round  on  the  three  of  them 


THE  PROBLEM  OF  THE  SOUTH  381 

he  struck  out  with  all  his  strength,  while  there  floated 
before  him  the  face  of  a  man  he  had  killed  in  his  first 
charge  at  Manassas.  The  old  fury,  the  old  triumph, 
the  old  blood-stained  splendour  returned  to  him. 
He  smelt  the  smoke  again,  he  heard  the  boom  of  the 
cannon,  the  long  sobbing  rattle  of  musketry,  and  the 
thought  stabbed  through  him,  "God  forgive  me  for 
loving  a  fight!" 

Then  the  fight  stopped.  There  was  a  patter  of  feet 
in  the  dust  as  the  young  negro  fled  like  a  hare  up  the 
road  in  the  direction  of  Dinwiddie.  One  of  the  men 
leaped  the  fence  and  disappeared  into  the  tangled 
thicket  beyond;  while  the  other  two,  sobered  suddenly, 
began  walking  slowly  over  the  ploughed  ground  on  the 
right.  Ten  minutes  later  Gabriel  was  lying  alone, 
with  the  blood  oozing  from  his  mouth,  on  the  trodden 
weeds  by  the  roadside.  The  shadow  of  the  pine  had 
not  moved  since  he  watched  it;  on  the  flat  rock  in  front 
of  the  cabin  the  old  negress  stood,  straining  her  eyes  in 
the  faint  sunshine;  and  up  the  long  road  the  March 
wind  still  blew,  as  soft,  as  provocative,  as  bud-scented. 


BOOK  THIRD 
THE  ADJUSTMENT 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    CHANGING    ORDER 

"So  THIS  is  life,"  thought  Virginia,  while  she  folded 
her  mourning  veil,  and  laid  it  away  in  the  top  drawer 
of  her  bureau.  Like  all  who  are  suddenly  brought 
face  to  face  with  tragedy,  she  felt  at  the  moment 
that  there  was  nothing  else  in  existence.  All  the 
sweetness  of  the  past  had  vanished  so  utterly  that  she 
remembered  it  only  as  one  remembers  a  dream  from 
which  one  has  abruptly  awakened.  Nothing  remained 
except  this  horrible  sense  of  the  pitiful  insufficiency  of 
life,  of  the  inexorable  finality  of  death.  It  was  a 
week  since  the  rector's  death,  and  in  that  week 
she  had  passed  out  of  her  girlhood  forever.  Of 
all  the  things  that  she  had  lived  through,  this  alone 
had  had  the  power  to  crush  the  hope  in  her  and  the 
odour  of  crape  which  floated  through  the  crack  of 
the  drawer  sickened  her  with  its  reminder  of  that 
agonized  sense  of  loss  which  had  settled  over  her  at  the 
funeral.  She  was  only  thirty  —  the  best  of  her  life 
should  still  be  in  the  future  —  yet  as  she  looked  back 
at  her  white  face  in  the  mirror  it  seemed  to  her  that 
she  should  never  emerge  from  the  leaden  hopelessness 
which  had  descended  like  a  weight  on  her  body. 
Above  the  harsh  black  of  her  dress,  which  added  ten 
years  to  her  appearance,  she  saw  the  darkened  circles 
rimming  her  eyes,  the  faded  pallor  of  her  skin,  the 

385 


386  VIRGINIA 

lustreless  wave  of  her  hair,   which  had  once  had  a 
satiny  sheen  on  its  ripples. 

"Grief  makes  a  person  look  like  this,"  she  thought. 
"I  shall  never  be  a  girl  again  —  Oliver  was  right:  I  am 
the  kind  to  break  early."  Then,  because  to  think  of 
herself  in  the  midst  of  such  sorrow  seemed  to  her 
almost  wicked,  she  turned  away  from  the  mirror,  and 
laid  her  crape-trimmed  hat  on  the  shelf  in  the  wardrobe. 
She  was  wearing  a  dress  of  black  Henrietta  cloth,  which 
had  been  borrowed  from  one  of  her  neighbours  who  had 
worn  mourning,  and  the  blouse  and  sleeves  hung  with 
an  exaggerated  fullness  over  her  thin  arms  and  bosom. 
All  that  had  distinguished  her  beauty  —  the  radiance, 
the  colour  the  flower- like  delicacy  of  bloom  and  sweet 
ness  —  these  were  blotted  out  by  her  grief  and  by  the 
voluminous  mourning  dress  of  the  nineties.  A  week 
had  changed  her,  as  even  Harry's  illness  had  not 
changed  her,  from  a  girl  into  a  woman;  and  horrible 
beyond  belief,  with  the  exception  of  her  mother,  it  had 
changed  nothing  else  in  the  universe!  The  tragedy 
that  had  ruined  her  life  had  left  the  rest  of  the  world  — 
even  the  little  world  of  Dinwiddie  —  moving  as  se 
renely,  as  indifferently,  on  its  way  towards  eternity. 
On  the  morning  of  the  funeral  she  had  heard  the  same 
market  wagons  rumble  over  the  cobblestones,  the 
same  droning  songs  of  the  hucksters,  the  same  casual 
procession  of  feet  on  the  pavement.  A  passionate  in 
dignation  had  seized  her  because  life  could  be  so 
brutal  to  death,  because  the  terror  and  the  pity 
that  flamed  in  her  soul  shed  no  burning  light  on 
the  town  where  her  father  had  worked  and  loved 
and  fought  and  suffered  and  died.  A  little  later  the 
ceaseless  tread  of  visitors  to  the  rectory  door  had 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  387 

driven  this  thought  from  her  mind,  but  through 
every  minute,  while  he  lay  in  the  closed  room 
downstairs,  while  she  sat  beside  her  mother  in  the 
slow  crawling  carriage  that  went  to  the  old  church 
yard,  while  she  stood  with  bowed  head  listening  to 
the  words  of  the  service  —  through  it  all  there 
had  been  the  feeling  that  something  must  hap 
pen  to  alter  a  world  in  which  such  a  thing  had 
been  possible,  that  life  must  stop,  that  the  heavens 
must  fall,  that  God  must  put  forth  His  hand  and 
work  a  miracle  in  order  to  show  His  compassion  and 
His  horror. 

But  nothing  had  changed.  After  the  funeral  her 
mother  had  come  home  with  her,  and  the  others,  many 
with  tear-stained  faces,  had  drifted  in  separate  ways 
back  to  eat  their  separate  dinners.  For  a  few  hours 
Dinwiddie  had  been  shaken  out  of  its  phlegmatic 
pursuit  of  happiness;  for  a  few  hours  it  had  at 
tained  an  emotional  solidarity  which  swept  it  up 
from  the  innumerable  bypaths  of  the  personal  to  a 
height  where  the  personal  rises  at  last  into  the  uni 
versal.  Then  the  ebb  had  come;  the  sense  of  tragedy 
had  lessened  slowly  with  the  prolongation  of  feeling; 
and  the  universal  vision  had  dissolved  and  crystal 
lized  into  the  pitiless  physical  needs  of  the  indi 
vidual.  After  the  funeral  a  wave  almost  of  relief 
had  swept  over  the  town  at  the  thought  that  the 
suspension  and  the  strain  were  at  an  end.  The  busi 
ness  of  keeping  alive,  and  the  moral  compulsion  of 
keeping  abreast  of  one's  neighbours,  reasserted  their 
supremacy  even  while  the  carriages,  quickening  their 
pace  a  trifle  on  the  return  drive,  rolled  out  of  the 
churchyard.  Now  at  the  end  of  a  week  only  Virginia 


388  VIRGINIA 


her  mother  would  take  the  time  from  living  to  sit 
down  and  remember. 

In  the  adjoining  room,  which  was  the  nursery, 
Mrs.  Pendleton  was  sitting  beside  the  window,  with 
her  Bible  open  on  her  knees,  and  her  head  bent  a  little 
in  the  direction  of  Miss  Priscilla,  who  was  mending  a 
black  dress  by  the  table. 

"It  is  so  sweet  of  you,  dear  Miss  Priscilla,"  she 
murmured  in  her  vague  and  gentle  voice  as  Virginia 
entered.  So  old,  so  pallid,  so  fragile  she  looked,  that 
she  might  have  been  mistaken  by  a  stranger  for  a 
woman  of  eighty,  yet  the  impossibility  of  breaking  the 
habit  of  a  lifetime  kept  the  lines  of  her  face  still  fixed  in 
an  expression  of  anxious  cheerfulness.  For  more  than 
forty  years  she  had  not  thought  of  herself,  and  now 
that  the  opportunity  had  come  for  her  to  do  so,  she 
found  that  she  had  almost  forgotten  the  way  that  one 
went  about  it.  Even  grief  could  not  make  her  selfish 
any  more  than  it  could  make  her  untidy.  Her  manner, 
like  her  dress,  was  so  little  a  matter  of  impulse,  and  so 
largely  a  matter  of  discipline  and  of  conscience,  that 
it  expressed  her  broken  heart  hardly  more  than  did 
the  widow's  cap  on  her  head  or  the  mourning  brooch 
that  fastened  the  crape  folds  of  her  collar. 

"Do  you  want  anything,  mother  darling?  What 
can  I  do  for  you?"  asked  Virginia,  stooping  to  kiss  her. 

"Nothing,  dear.  I  was  just  telling  Miss  Priscilla 
that  I  had  had  a  visit  from  Mr.  Treadwell,  and  that 
—  her  voice  quivered  a  little—  "he  showed  more 
feeling  than  I  should  have  believed  possible.  He  even 
wanted  to  make  me  an  allowance.' 

Miss  Priscilla  drew  out  her  large  linen  handkerchief, 
which  was  like  a  man's,  and  loudly  blew  her  nose. 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  389 

•"I  always  said  there  was  more  in  Cyrus  than  people 
thought,"  she  observed.  "Here,  I've  shortened  this 
dress,  Jinny,  until  it's  just  about  your  mother's  length." 

She  tried  to  speak  carelessly,  for  though  she  did  not 
concur  in  the  popular  belief  that  to  ignore  sorrow  is  to 
assuage  it,  her  social  instinct,  which  was  as  strongly 
developed  as  Mrs.  Pendleton's,  encouraged  her  to 
throw  a  pleasant  veil  over  affliction. 

"You're  looking  pale  for  want  of  air,  Jinny,"  she 
added,  after  a  minute  in  which  she  had  thought,  "The 
child  has  broken  so  in  the  last  few  days  that  she  looks 
years  older  than  Oliver." 

"I'm  trying  to  make  her  go  driving,"  said  Mrs. 
Pendleton,  leaning  forward  over  the  open  page  of  her 
Bible. 

"But  I  can't  go,  mother;  I  haven't  the  heart  for  it," 
replied  Virginia,  choking  down  a  sob. 

"I  don't  like  to  see  you  looking  so  badly,  dear. 
You  must  keep  up  your  strength  for  the  children's 
sake,  you  know." 

"Yes,  I  know,"  answered  Virginia,  but  her  voice  had 
a  weary  sound. 

A  little  later,  when  Miss  Priscilla  had  gone,  and 
Oliver  came  in  to  urge  her  to  go  with  him,  she  shook 
her  head  again,  still  palely  resolute,  still  softly  ob 
stinate. 

"But,  Jinny,  it  isn't  right  for  you  to  let  your  health 
go,"  he  urged.  "You  haven't  had  a  breath  of  air  for 
days  and  you're  getting  sallow." 

His  own  colour  was  as  fine  as  ever;  he  grew  hand 
somer,  if  a  trifle  stouter,  as  he  grew  older;  and  at 
thirty-five  there  was  all  the  vigour  and  the  charm  of 
twenty  in  his  face  and  manner.  In  one  way  only  he 


390  VIRGINIA 

had  altered,  and  of  this  alteration,  he,  as  well  as  Vir 
ginia,  was  beginning  faintly  to  be  aware.  Comfort 
was  almost  imperceptibly  taking  the  place  of  convic 
tion,  and  the  passionate  altruism  of  youth  would  yield 
before  many  years  to  the  prudential  philosophy  of 
middle-age.  Life  had  defeated  him.  His  best  had 
been  thrown  back  at  him,  and  his  nature,  embittered 
by  failure,  was  adjusting  itself  gradually  to  a  different 
and  a  lower  standard  of  values.  Though  he  could  not 
be  successful,  it  was  still  possible,  even  within  the  nar 
row  limits  of  his  income  and  his  opportunities,  to  be 
comfortable.  And,  like  other  men  who  have  lived  day 
by  day  with  heroically  unselfish  women,  he  had  fallen 
at  last  into  the  habit  of  thinking  that  his  being  com 
fortable  was,  after  all,  a  question  of  supreme  impor 
tance  to  the  universe.  Deeply  as  he  had  felt  the 
rector's  death,  he,  in  common  with  the  rest  of  Din- 
widdie,  was  conscious  of  breathing  more  easily  after 
the  funeral  was  over.  To  his  impressionable  nature, 
alternations  of  mood  were  almost  an  essential  of  being, 
and  there  was  something  intolerable  to  him  in  any 
slowly  harrowing  grief.  To  watch  Virginia  nursing 
every  memory  of  her  father  because  she  shrank  from 
the  subtle  disloyalty  of  forgetfulness,  aroused  in  him 
a  curious  mingling  of  sympathy  and  resentment. 

"I  wish  you'd  go,  even  if  you  don't  feel  like  it — 
just   to   please    me,    Virginia,"    he   urged,    and    after 
a  short  struggle  she  yielded  to  his  altered  tone,  and 
got  down  her  hat  from  the  shelf  of  the  wardrobe. 

A  little  later,  as  the  dog-cart  rolled  out  of  Dinwiddie 
into  the  country  road,  she  looked  through  her  black 
grenadine  veil  on  a  world  which  appeared  to  have  lost 
its  brightness.  The  road  was  the  one  along  which  she 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  391 

had  ridden  on  the  morning  of  the  fox-hunt;  ahead  of 
them  lay  the  same  fields,  sown  now  with  the  tender 
green  of  the  spring;  the  same  creeks  ran  there, 
screened  by  the  same  thickets  of  elder;  the  same  pines 
wafted  their  tang  on  the  March  wind  that  blew,  singing, 
out  of  the  forest.  It  was  all  just  as  it  had  been  on  that 
morning  —  and  yet  what  a  difference ! 

"Put  up  your  veil,  Virginia  —  it's  enough  to 
smother  you." 

But  she  only  shook  her  head,  shrinking  farther  down 
into  the  shapeless  borrowed  dress  as  though  she  felt- 
that  it  protected  her.  Following  the  habit  of  people 
whose  choice  has  been  instinctive  rather  than  deliber 
ate,  a  choice  of  the  blood,  not  of  the  brain,  they  had 
long  ago  exhausted  the  fund  of  conversation  with  which 
they  had  started.  There  was  nothing  to  talk  about  — 
since  Virginia  had  never  learned  to  talk  of  herself,  and 
Oliver  had  grown  reticent  recently  about  the  subjects 
that  interested  him.  When  the  daily  anecdotes  of 
the  children  had  been  aired  between  them  with  an 
effort  at  breeziness,  nothing  remained  except  the 
endless  discussion  of  Harry's  education.  Even  this 
had  worn  threadbare  of  late,  and  with  the  best  in 
tentions  in  the  world,  Virginia  had  failed  to  supply 
anything  else  of  sufficient  importance  to  take  its  place. 
An  inherited  habit,  the  same  habit  which  had  made 
it  possible  for  Mrs.  Pendleton  to  efface  her  broken 
heart,  prompted  her  to  avoid  any  allusion  to  her  grief 
in  which  she  sat  shrouded  as  in  her  mourning  veil. 

"The  spring  is  so  early  this  year,"  she  remarked 
once,  with  her  gaze  on  the  rosy  billows  of  an  orchard. 
"The  peach  trees  have  almost  finished  blooming." 

Then,  as  he  made  no  answer  except  to  flick  at  John 


392  VIRGINIA 

Henry's  bay  mare  with  his  whip,  she  asked  daringly, 
"Are  you  writing  again,  Oliver?" 

A  frown  darkened  his  forehead,  and  she  saw  the 
muscles  about  his  mouth  twitch  as  though  he  were 
irritated.  For  all  his  failure  and  his  bitterness,  he  did 
not  look  a  day  older,  she  thought,  than  when  she  had 
first  seen  him  driving  down  High  Street  in  that  unforget 
table  May.  He  was  still  as  ardent,  still  as  capable  of 
inspiring  first  love  in  the  imagination  of  a  girl.  The 
light  and  the  perfume  of  that  enchanted  spring  seemed 
suddenly  to  envelop  her,  and  moved  by  a  yearning  to 
recapture  them  for  an  instant,  she  drew  closer  to  him, 
and  slipped  her  hand  through  his  arm. 

"Oh,  I'm  trying  my  luck  with  some  trash.  Nothing 
faut  trash  has  any  chance  of  going  in  this  damned 
business." 

"You  mean  it's  different  from  your  others?  It's 
less  serious?" 

"Less  serious?  Well,  I  should  say  so.  It's  the  sort 
of  ice-cream  soda-water  the  public  wants.  But  if  I  can 
get  it  put  on,  it  ought  to  run,  and  a  play  that  runs  is 
obliged  to  make  money.  I  doubt  if  there's  anything 
much  better  than  money,  when  it  comes  to  that." 

"You  used  to  say  it  didn't  matter." 

"Did  I?  Well,  I  was  a  fool  and  I've  learned  better. 
These  last  few  years  have  taught  me  that  nothing  else 
on  earth  matters  much." 

This  was  so  different  from  what  that  other  Oliver  - 
the  Oliver  of  her  first  love  —  might  have  said,  that 
involuntarily  her  clasp  on  his  arm  tightened.  The 
change  in  him,  so  gradual  at  first  that  her  mind,  unused 
to  subtleties,  had  hardly  grasped  it,  was  beginning  to 
frighten  her. 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  393 

"You  have  such  burdens,  dear,"  she  said,  and  he 
noticed  that  her  voice  had  acquired  the  toneless  sweet 
ness  of  her  mother's.  "I've  tried  to  be  as  saving  as 
I  could,  but  the  children  have  been  sick  so  much  that 
it  seems  sometimes  as  if  we  should  never  get  out  of 
debt.  I  am  trying  now  to  pay  off  the  bills  I  was  obliged 
to  make  while  Harry  was  ill  in  October.  If  I  could 
only  get  perfectly  strong,  we  might  let  Marthy  go,  now 
that  Jenny  is  getting  so  big." 

"You  work  hard  enough  as  it  is,  Virginia.  You've 
been  awfully  good  about  it,"  he  answered,  but  his 
manner  was  almost  casual,  for  he  had  grown  to  take  for 
granted  her  unselfishness  with  something  of  the  uncon 
cern  with  which  he  took  for  granted  the  comfortable 
feeling  of  the  spring  weather.  In  the  early  days  of 
their  marriage,  when  her  fresh  beauty  had  been  a 
power  to  rule  him,  she  had  taught  him  to  assume  his 
right  to  her  self-immolation  on  the  altar  of  his  com 
fort;  and  with  the  taste  of  bitterness  which  sometimes 
follows  the  sweets  of  memory,  she  recalled  that  their 
first  quarrel  had  arisen  because  she  had  insisted  on 
getting  out  of  bed  to  make  the  fires  in  the  morn 
ing.  Then,  partly  because  the  recollection  ap 
peared  to  reproach  him,  and  partly  because,  not 
possessing  the  critical  faculty,  she  had  never  learned 
to  acknowledge  the  existence  of  a  flaw  in  a  person 
she  loved,  she  edged  closer  to  him,  and  replied  cheer 
fully: 

"I  don't  mind  the  work  a  bit,  if  only  the  children 
will  keep  well  so  we  shan't  have  to  spend  any  more 
money.  I  shan't  need  any  black  clothes,"  she  added, 
with  a  trembling  lip.  "Mrs.  Carrington  has  given  me 
this  dress,  as  she  has  gone  out  of  mourning,  and  I've 


394  VIRGINIA 

got  a  piece  of  blue  silk  put  away  that  I  am  going  to 
have  dyed." 

He  glanced  at  the  shapeless  dress,  not  indignantly  as 
he  would  once  have  done,  but  with  a  tinge  of  quiet 
amusement. 

"It  makes  you  look  every  day  of  forty." 

"I  know  it  isn't  becoming,  but  at  least  it  will  save 
having  to  buy  one." 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  her  small  economies  had  made 
it  possible  for  them  to  live  wholesomely,  and  with  at 
least  an  appearance  of  decency,  on  his  meagre  salary, 
they  had  always  aroused  in  him  a  sense  of  bitter  ex 
asperation.  He  respected  her,  of  course,  for  her 
saving,  yet  in  his  heart  he  knew  that  she  would  probably 
have  charmed  him  more  had  she  been  a  spendthrift  — 
since  the  little  virtues  are  sometimes  more  deadly  to  the 
passion  of  love  than  are  the  large  vices.  While  he 
nodded,  without  disputing  the  sound  common  sense  in 
her  words,  she  thought  a  little  wistfully  how  nice  it 
would  be  to  have  pretty  things  if  only  one  could  afford 
them.  Someday,  when  the  children's  schooling  was 
over  and  Oliver  had  got  a  larger  salary,  she  would 
begin  to  buy  clothes  that  were  becoming  rather  than 
durable.  But  that  was  in  the  future,  and,  meanwhile, 
how  much  better  it  was  to  grudge  every  penny  she 
spent  on  herself  as  long  as  there  were  unpaid  bills  at  the 
doctor's  and  the  grocer's.  All  of  which  was,  of  course, 
perfectly  reasonable,  and  like  other  women  who  have 
had  a  narrow  experience  of  life,  she  cherished  the 
delusion  that  a  man's  love,  as  well  as  his  philosophy, 
is  necessarily  rooted  in  reason. 

When  they  turned  homeward,  the  bay  mare,  pricked 
by  desire  for  her  stable,  began  to  travel  more  rapidly, 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  395 

and  the  fall  of  her  hoofs,  accompanied  by  the  light  roll 
of  the  wheels,  broke  the  silence  which  had  almost 
imperceptibly  settled  upon  them.  Not  until  the  cart 
drew  up  at  the  gate  did  Virginia  realize  that  they  had 
hardly  spoken  a  dozen  words  on  the  drive  back. 

"I  feel  better  already,  Oliver,"  she  said,  gratefully, 
as  he  helped  her  to  alight.  Then  hastening  ahead  of 
him,  she  ran  up  the  walk  and  into  the  hall,  where  her 
mother,  looking  wan  and  unnatural  in  her  widow's  cap, 
greeted  her  with  the  question: 

"Did  you  have  a  pleasant  drive,  dear?" 


For  six  months  Mrs.  Pendleton  hid  her  broken  heart 
under  a  smile  and  went  softly  about  the  small  daily 
duties  of  the  household,  facing  death,  as  she  had  faced 
life,  with  a  sublime  unselfishness  and  the  manner  of  a 
lady.  Her  hopes,  her  joys,  her  fears  even,  lay  in  the 
past;  there  was  nothing  for  her  to  look  forward  to, 
nothing  for  her  to  dread  in  the  future.  Life  had  given 
her  all  that  it  had  to  offer  of  bliss  or  sorrow,  and  for 
the  rest  of  her  few  years  she  would  be  like  one  who, 
having  finished  her  work  before  the  end  of  the  day,  sits 
waiting  patiently  for  the  words  of  release  to  be  spoken. 
As  the  months  went  on,  she  moved  like  a  gentle  shadow 
about  her  daughter's  little  home.  So  wasted  and  pallid 
was  her  body  that  at  times  Virginia  feared  to  touch  her 
lest  she  should  melt  like  a  phantom  out  of  her  arms. 
Yet  to  the  last  she  never  faltered,  never  cried  out  for 
mercy,  never  sought  to  hasten  by  a  breath  that  end 
which  was  to  her  as  the  longing  of  her  eyes,  as  the 
brightness  of  the  sunlight,  as  the  sweetness  of  the 


396  VIRGINIA 

springtime.  Once,  looking  up  from  Lucy's  lesson 
which  she  was  hearing,  she  said  a  little  wistfully,  "I 
don't  think,  Jinny,  it  will  be  long  now,"  and  then 
checking  herself  reproachfully,  she  added,  "But  God 
knows  best.  I  can  trust  Him." 

It  was  the  only  time  that  she  had  ever  spoken  of  the 
thought  which  was  in  her  mind  day  and  night,  for 
when  she  could  no  longer  welcome  her  destiny,  she  had 
accepted  it.  Her  faith,  like  her  opinions,  was  child-like 
and  uncritical  —  the  artless  product  of  a  simple  and 
incurious  age.  The  strength  in  her  had  gone  not  into 
the  building  of  knowledge,  but  into  the  making  of 
character,  and  she  had  judged  all  thought  as  innocently 
as  she  had  judged  all  literature,  by  its  contribution  to 
the  external  sweetness  of  living.  A  child  of  ten  might 
have  demolished  her  theories,  and  yet  because  of  them, 
or  in  spite  of  them,  she  had  translated  into  action  the 
end  of  all  reasoning,  the  profoundest  meaning  in  all 
philosophy.  But  she  was  born  to  decorate  instead  of 
to  reason.  Though  her  mind  had  never  winnowed 
illusions  from  realities,  her  hands  had  patiently  woven 
both  illusions  and  realities  into  the  embroidered  fabric 
of  Life. 

For  six  months  she  went  about  the  house  and  helped 
Virginia  with  the  sewing,  which  had  become  burden 
some  since  the  children,  and  especially  Harry,  were 
big  enough  to  wear  daily  holes  in  their  stockings. 
Then,  when  the  half  year  was  over,  she  took  to  her  bed 
one  evening  after  she  had  carefully  undressed,  folded 
her  clothes  out  of  sight,  and  read  a  chapter  in  her 
Bible.  In  the  morning  she  did  not  get  up,  and  at  the 
end  of  a  fortnight,  in  which  she  apologized  for  making 
extra  work  whenever  food  was  brought  to  her,  she 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  397 

clasped  her  hands  on  her  thin  breast,  smiled  once  into 
Virginia's  face,  and  died  so  quietly  that  there  was 
hardly  a  perceptible  change  in  her  breathing.  She 
had  gone  through  life  without  giving  trouble,  and  she 
gave  none  at  the  end.  As  she  lay  there  in  her  little  bed 
in  Virginia's  spare  room,  to  which  she  had  moved  after 
Gabriel's  death  in  order  that  the  rectory  might  be  got 
ready  for  the  new  rector,  she  appeared  so  shadowy  and 
unearthly  that  it  was  impossible  to  believe  that  she 
had  ever  been  a  part  of  the  restless  strivings  and  the 
sombre  violences  of  life.  On  the  candle-stand  by  her 
bed  lay  her  spectacles,  with  steel  rims  because  she  had 
never  felt  that  she  could  afford  gold  ones;  and  a  single 
October  rose,  from  which  a  golden  petal  had  dropped, 
stood  in  a  vase  beside  the  Bible.  On  the  foot  of  the 
bed  hung  her  grey  flannelette  wrapper,  with  a  patch 
in  one  sleeve  over  which  Harry  had  spilled  a  bottle  of 
shoe  polish,  while  through  the  half- shuttered  window 
the  autumn  sunshine  fell  in  long  yellow  bars  over  the 
hemp  rugs  on  the  floor.  And  she  was  dead!  Her 
mother  was  dead  —  no  matter  how  much  she  needed 
her,  she  would  never  come  back.  Out  of  the  vacancy 
around  her,  some  words  of  her  own,  spoken  in  her 
girlhood,  returned  to  her.  "There  is  only  one  thing 
I  couldn't  bear,  and  that  is  losing  my  mother."  Only 
one  thing !  And  now  that  one  thing  had  happened,  and 
she  was  not  only  bearing  it,  she  was  looking  ahead  to  a 
future  in  which  that  one  thing  would  be  always  beside 
her,  always  in  her  memory.  Whatever  the  years 
brought  to  her,  they  could  never  bring  her  mother 
again  —  they  could  never  bring  her  a  love  like  her 
mother's. 

Out  of  that  same  vacancy,  which  seemed  to  swallow 


398  VIRGINIA 

and  to  hold  everything,  which  seemed  to  exist  both 
within  and  outside  of  herself,  a  multitude  of  forgotten 
images  and  impressions  flashed  into  being.  She  saw 
the  nursery  fireside  in  the  rectory,  and  her  mother, 
with  hair  that  still  shone  like  satin,  rocking  back  and 
forth  in  the  black  wicker  chair  with  the  sagging  bottom. 
She  saw  her  kneeling  on  the  old  frayed  red  and  blue 
drugget,  her  skirt  pinned  up  at  the  back  of  her  waist, 
while  she  bathed  her  daughter's  scratched  and  aching 
feet  in  the  oblong  tin  foot-tub.  She  saw  her,  as  beauti 
ful  as  an  angel,  in  church  on  Sunday  mornings,  her 
worshipful  eyes  lifted  to  the  pulpit,  an  edge  of  tinted 
light  falling  on  the  open  prayer-book  in  her  hand. 
She  saw  her,  thin  and  stooping,  a  shadow  of  all  that  she 
had  once  been  —  waiting  —  waiting  —  She  had 
always  been  there.  It  was  impossible  to  realize  that 
a  time  could  ever  come  when  she  would  not  be  there  — 
and  now  she  was  gone! 

And  behind  all  the  images,  all  the  impressions,  the 
stubborn  thought  persisted  that  this  was  life  —  that 
one  could  never  escape  it  —  that  whatever  happened, 
one  must  come  back  to  it  at  the  last.  "I  have  my 
children  still  left  —  but  for  my  children  I  could  not 
live!"  she  thought,  dropping  on  her  knees  by  the  bed 
side,  and  hiding  her  face  in  the  grey  wrapper. 


After  this  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  ceased  to  live  ex 
cept  in  the  lives  of  her  children,  and  her  days  passed  so 
evenly,  so  monotonously,  that  she  only  noticed  their 
flight  when  one  of  the  old  people  in  Dinwiddie  remarked 
to  her  with  a  certain  surprise :  "You've  almost  a  grown 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  399 

daughter  now,  Jinny,"  or  "Harry  will  soon  be  getting 
as  big  as  his  father.  Have  you  decided  where  you  will 
send  him  to  college?"  She  was  not  unhappy  —  had 
she  ever  stopped  to  ask  herself  the  question,  she  would 
probably  have  answered,  "If  only  mother  and  father 
were  living,  I  should  be  perfectly  satisfied";  yet  in  spite 
of  her  assurances,  there  existed  deep  down  in  her  —  so 
deep  that  her  consciousness  had  never  fully  grasped  the 
fact  of  its  presence — a  dumb  feeling  that  something  was 
missing  out  of  life,  that  the  actuality  was  a  little  less 
bright,  a  little  less  perfect  than  it  had  appeared  through 
the  rosy  glamour  of  her  virgin  dreams.  Was  this  "  some 
thing  missing"  merely  one  of  the  necessary  conditions 
of  mortal  existence?  Or  was  there  somewhere  on  the 
earth  that  stainless  happiness  which  she  had  once 
believed  her  marriage  would  bring  to  her?  "I  should 
be  perfectly  satisfied  if  only  -  '  she  would  some 
times  say  in  the  night,  and  then  check  herself  before 
she  had  ended  the  sentence.  The  lack,  real  as  it  was, 
was  still  too  formless  to  lend  itself  to  the  precision  of 
words;  it  belonged  less  to  circumstances  than  to  the 
essential  structure  of  life.  And  yet,  as  she  put  it  to 
herself  in  her  rare  moments  of  depression,  she  had  so 
much  to  be  thankful  for!  The  children  grew  stronger 
as  they  grew  older  —  since  Harry's  attack  of  diph 
theria,  indeed,  there  had  been  no  serious  illness  in  the 
family,  and  as  she  approached  middle-age,  her  terror 
of  illness  increased  rather  than  diminished.  The  chil 
dren  made  up  for  much  —  they  ought  to  have  made 
up  for  everything  —  and  yet  did  they?  There  was  no 
visible  fault  that  she  could  attribute  to  them.  With 
her  temperamental  inability  to  see  flaws,  she  was 
accustomed  to  think  of  them  as  perfect  children,  as 


400  VIRGINIA 

children  whom  she  would  not  change,  had  she  the 
power,  by  so  much  as  a  hair  or  an  outline.  They  grew 
up,  straight,  fine,  and  fearless,  full  of  the  new  spirit, 
eager  to  test  life,  to  examine  facts,  possessed  by  that 
awakening  feeling  for  truth  which  had  always  fright 
ened  her  a  little  in  Susan.  Vaguely,  without  defining 
the  sensation,  she  felt  that  they  were  growing  beyond 
her,  that  she  could  no  longer  keep  up  with  them,  that, 
every  year,  they  were  leaving  her  a  little  farther  behind 
them.  They  were  fond  of  her,  but  she  understood 
from  something  Jenny  said  one  day,  that  they  had 
ceased  to  be  proud  of  her.  It  was  while  they  were 
looking  over  an  old  photograph  album  of  Susan's 
that,  coming  to  a  picture  of  Virginia,  taken  the  week 
before  her  wedding,  Jenny  cried  out:  "Why,  there's 
mother!"  and  slipped  it  out  of  the  page. 

"I  never  saw  that  before,"  Lucy  said,  leaning  over 
with  a  laugh.  "You  were  so  young  when  you  married, 
mother,  and  you  wore  such  tight  sleeves,  and  a  bustle!" 

"Would  you  ever  have  believed  she  was  as  pretty  as 
that?"  asked  Jenny,  with  the  unconscious  brutality  of 
childhood. 

"If  you  are  ever  as  beautiful  as  your  mother  was, 
you  may  thank  your  stars,"  said  Susan  dryly,  and  by 
the  expression  in  her  face  Virginia  knew  that  she  was 
thinking,  "If  that  was  my  child,  I'd  slap  her!" 

Harry,  who  had  been  stuffing  fruitcake  on  the  sofa  — 
sweets  were  his  weakness  —  rose  suddenly  and  came 
over  to  the  group. 

"If  you  are  ever  as  beautiful  as  she  is  now,  you  may 
thank  you  stars,  Miss  Yellow  Frisk!"  he  remarked 
cru  shingly. 

It  was  a  little  thing  —  so  little  that  it  seemed  ridic- 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  401 

ulous  to  think  of  it  as  among  the  momentous  hap 
penings  in  a  life  —  but  with  that  extraordinary  prone- 
ness  of  the  little  to  usurp  the  significant  places  of 
memory,  it  had  become  at  last  one  of  the  important 
milestones  in  her  experience.  At  the  end,  when  she 
forgot  everything  else,  she  would  not  forget  Harry's 
foolish  words,  nor  the  look  in  his  indignant  boyish  face 
when  he  uttered  them.  Until  then  she  had  not  ad 
mitted  to  herself  that  there  was  a  difference  in  her 
feeling  for  her  children,  but  with  the  touch  of  his  sym 
pathetic,  not  over  clean,  hand  on  her  shoulder,  she 
knew  that  she  should  never  again  think  of  the  three  of 
them  as  if  they  were  one  in  her  interest  and  her  love. 
The  girls  were  good  children,  dear  children  —  she 
would  have  let  herself  be  cut  in  pieces  for  either  of 
them  had  it  been  necessary  —  but  between  Harry  and 
herself  there  was  a  different  bond,  a  closer  and  a  deeper 
dependency,  which  strengthened  almost  insensibly  as  he 
grew  older.  Her  daughters  she  loved,  but  her  son, 
as  is  the  inexplicable  way  of  women,  she  adored  blindly 
and  without  wisdom.  If  it  had  been  possible  to  ruin 
him,  she  would  have  done  so,  but,  unlike  many  other 
sons,  he  seemed,  by  virtue  of  that  invincible  strength 
with  which  he  had  been  born,  to  be  proof  against  both 
spoiling  and  flattery.  He  was  a  nice  boy  even  to 
strangers,  even  to  Susan,  with  her  serene  judgment  of 
persons,  he  appeared  a  thoroughly  nice  boy!  He  was 
not  only  a  tall,  lean,  habitually  towselled-headed 
youngster,  with  a  handsome  sunburned  face  and  a  pair 
of  charming,  slightly  quizzical  blue  eyes,  but  he  was, 
as  his  teachers  and  his  school  reports  bore  witness, 
possessed  of  an  intellectual  brilliancy  which  made  study 
as  easy,  and  quite  as  interesting  to  him,  as  play.  Unlike 


402  VIRGINIA 

his  father,  he  had  entered  life  endowed  with  a  cheerful 
outlook  upon  the  world  and  with  that  temperament  of 
success  which  usually,  but  by  no  means  inevitably, 
accompanies  it.     Whatever  happened,  he  would  make 
the  best  of  it,  he  would  "get  on,"  and  it  was  impossible 
to  imagine  him  in  any  hole  so  deep  that  he  could  not, 
sooner  or  later,  find  the  way  out  of  it.     The  Pendleton 
and  the  Treadwell  spirits  had  contributed  their  best 
to  him.     If  he   derived  from   Cyrus,   or  from   some 
obscure  strain  in  Cyrus's  ancestry,  a  wholesome  regard 
for  material  success,  a  robust  determination  to  achieve 
results  combined  with  that  hard,  clear  vision  of  affairs 
which  makes  such  achievement  easy,  he  had  inherited 
from  Gabriel  his  genial  temper,  his  charm  of  manner, 
and  his  faith  in  life,  which,  though  it  failed  to  move 
mountains,  had  sweetened  and  enriched  the  mere  act  of 
living.     Though  he  was  less  demonstrative  than  Lucy, 
who  had  outgrown  the  plainness  and  the  reticence  of 
her  childhood  and  was  developing  into  a  coquettish, 
shallow-minded  girl,  with  what  Miss  Priscilla  called 
"a  glib  tongue,"  Virginia  learned  gradually,  in  the 
secret  way   mothers  learn   things,  that  his   love  for 
her  was,  after  his  ambition,  the  strongest  force  in  his 
character.     Between   him   and   his  father   there  had 
existed  ever  since  his  babyhood  a  curious,  silent,  yet 
ineradicable  hostility.     Whether  the  fault  was  Oliver's 
or  Harry's,  whether  the  father  resented  the  energy  and 
the  initiative  of  his  son,  or  the  son  resented  the  indif 
ference  and  the  self-absorption  of  his  father,  Virginia 
had  never  discovered.     For  years  she  fought  against 
admitting  the  discord  between  them.     Then,  at  last, 
on  the  occasion  of  a  quarrel,  when  it  was  no  longer  pos 
sible  to  dissemble,  she  followed  Oliver  into  his  study, 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  403 

which  had  once  been  the  "back  parlour,"  and  pleaded 
with  him  to  show  a  little  patience,  a  little  sympathy 
with  his  son.  "He's  a  boy  any  father  would  be  proud 
of  -  "  she  finished,  almost  in  tears. 

"I  know  he  is,"  he  answered  irritably,  "but  the  truth 
is  he  rubs  me  the  wrong  way.  I  suppose  the  trouble 
is  that  you  have  spoiled  him." 

"But  he  isn't  spoiled.     Everybody  says " 

"Oh,  everybody!"  he  murmured  disdainfully,  with 
a  shrug  of  his  fine  shoulders. 

He  looked  back  at  her  with  the  sombre  fire  of  anger 
still  in  his  eyes,  and  she  saw,  without  trying  to  see,  with 
out  even  knowing  that  she  did  see,  all  the  changes  that 
years  had  wrought  in  his  appearance.  Physically,  he 
was  a  finer  animal  than  he  had  been  when  she  married 
him,  for  time,  which  had  sapped  her  youth  and  faded 
her  too  delicate  bloom,  had  but  added  a  deeper  colour 
to  the  warm  brown  of  his  skin,  a  steadier  glow  to  his 
eyes,  a  more  silvery  gloss  to  his  hair.  At  forty,  he  was 
a  handsomer  man  than  he  had  been  at  twenty-five, 
yet,  in  spite  of  this,  some  virtue  had  gone  out  of  him  — 
here,  too,  as  in  life,  "something  was  missing."  The 
generous  impulses,  the  high  heart  for  adventure,  the 
enthusiasm  of  youth,  and  youth's  white  rage  for  perfec 
tion  —  where  were  these?  It  was  as  if  a  rough  hand  had 
passed  over  him,  coarsening  here,  blotting  out  there, 
accentuating  elsewhere.  The  slow,  insidious  devil  of 
compromise  had  done  its  work.  Once  he  had  made  one 
of  the  small  band  of  fighters  who  fight  not  for  advan 
tage,  but  for  the  truth;  now  he  stood  in  that  middle  place 
with  the  safe  majority  who  are  "neither  for  God  nor 
for  His  enemies."  Life  had  done  this  to  him  —  life 
and  Virginia.  It  was  not  only  that  he  had  "  grown  soft," 


404  VIRGINIA 

as  he  would  have  expressed  it,  nor  was  it  even  wholly 
that  he  had  grown  selfish,  for  the  canker  which  ate 
at  the  roots  of  his  personality  had  affected  not  his 
character  merely,  but  the  very  force  of  his  will. 
Though  the  imperative  he  obeyed  had  always  been  not 
"I  must,"  but  "I  want,"  his  natural  loftiness  of 
purpose  might  have  saved  him  from  the  results  of  his 
weakness  had  he  not  lost  gradually  the  capacity 
for  successful  resistance  with  which  he  had  started.  If 
only  in  the  beginning  she  had  upheld  not  his  inclina 
tions,  but  his  convictions;  if  only  she  had  sought  not  to 
soothe  his  weakness,  but  to  stimulate  his  strength;  if 
only  she  had  seen  for  once  the  thing  as  it  was,  not  as  it 

ought  to  have  been 

He  was  buried  in  his  work  now,  and  there  were 
months  during  this  year  when  she  appeared  hardly  to 
see  him,  so  engrossed,  so  self-absorbed  had  he  become. 
Sometimes  she  would  remember,  stifling  the  pang  it 
caused,  the  nights  when  he  had  written  his  first  plays 
in  Matoaca  City,  and  that  he  had  made  her  sit  beside 
him  with  her  sewing  because  he  could  not  think  if  she 
were  out  of  the  room.  Now,  he  could  write  only  when 
he  was  alone;  he  hated  an  interruption  so  much  that 
she  often  let  the  fire  go  out  rather  than  open  his  closed 
door  to  see  if  it  was  burning.  If  she  went  in  to  speak  to 
him,  he  laid  his  pen  down  and  did  not  take  it  up  again 
while  she  was  there.  Yet  this  change  had  come  so 
stealthily  that  it  had  hardly  affected  her  happiness.  She 
had  grown  accustomed  to  the  difference  before  she  had 
realized  it  sufficiently  to  suffer.  Sometimes  she  would 
say  to  herself  a  little  wonderingly,  "Oliver  used  to  be 
so  romantic;"  for  with  the  majority  of  women  whose 
marriages  have  surrendered  to  an  invasion  of  the 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  405 

commonplace,  she  accepted  the  comfortable  theory 
that  the  alteration  was  due  less  to  circumstances  than 
to  the  natural  drying  of  the  springs  of  sentiment  in 
her  husband's  character.  Occasionally,  she  would  re 
member  with  a  smile  her  three  days'  jealousy  of 
Abby;  but  the  brevity  and  the  folly  of  this  had 
established  her  the  more  securely  in  her  impregnable 
position  of  unquestioning  belief  in  him.  She  had 
started  life  believing,  as  the  women  of  her  race  had 
believed  for  ages  before  her,  that  love  was  a  divine  gift 
which  came  but  once  in  a  lifetime,  and  which,  com 
ing  once,  remained  forever  indestructible.  People,  of 
course,  grew  more  practical  and  less  intense  as  they  left 
youth  farther  behind  them;  and  though  this  misty 
principle  would  have  dissolved  at  once  had  she  applied 
it  to  herself  (for  she  became  more  sentimental  as  she 
approached  middle-age),  behind  any  suspicious  haziness 
of  generalization  there  remained  always  the  sacred 
formula,  "Men  are  different."  Once,  when  a  sharp 
outbreak  of  the  primal  force  had  precipitated  a  scandal 
in  the  home  of  one  of  her  neighbours,  she  had  remarked 
to  Susan  that  she  was  "devoutly  thankful  that  Oliver 
did  not  have  that  side  to  his  nature." 

"It  must  be  a  disagreeable  side  to  live  with,"  Susan, 
happily  married  to  John  Henry,  and  blissfully  ex 
pectant  of  motherhood,  had  replied,  "but  as  far  as 
I  know,  Oliver  never  had  a  light  fancy  for  a  woman  in 
his  life  —  not  even  before  he  was  married.  I  used  to 
tell  him  that  it  was  because  he  expected  too  much. 
Physical  beauty  by  itself  never  seemed  to  attract  him  — 
it  was  the  angel  in  you  that  he  first  fell  in  love  with." 

A  glow  of  pleasure  flushed  Virginia's  sharpened 
features,  mounting  to  the  thin  little  curls  on  her  fore- 


406  VIRGINIA 

head.  These  little  curls,  to  which  she  sentimentally 
clung  in  spite  of  the  changes  in  the  fashions,  were  a 
cause  of  ceaseless  worry  to  Lucy,  who  had  developed 
into  a  "stylish"  girl,  and  would  have  died  sooner  than 
she  would  have  rejected  the  universal  pompadour  of 
the  period.  It  was  the  single  vanity  that  Virginia  had 
ever  permitted  herself,  this  adhering  at  middle-age  to 
the  quaint  and  rather  coquettish  hairdressing  of  her 
girlhood:  and  Fate  had  punished  her  by  threading  the 
little  curls  with  grey,  while  Susan's  stiff  roll  (she  had 
adopted  the  newer  mode)  remained  bravely  flaxen. 
But  Susan  was  one  of  those  women  who,  lacking  a  fine 
fair  skin  and  defying  tradition,  are  physically  at  their 
best  between  forty  and  fifty. 

"Oliver  used  to  be  so  romantic,"  said  Virginia,  as 
she  had  said  so  often  to  herself,  while  the  glow  paled 
slowly  from  her  cheeks,  leaving  them  the  colour  of 
faded  rose-leaves. 

"Not  so  romantic  as  you  were,  Jinny." 

"Oh,  I  am  still,"  she  laughed  softly.  "Lucy  says 
I  take  more  interest  in  her  lovers  now  than  she  does," 
and  she  added  after  a  minute,  "Girls  are  so  different 
to-day  from  what  they  used  to  be  —  they  are  so  much 
less  sentimental." 

"But  I  thought  Lucy  was.  She  has  enough  flir 
tations  for  her  age,  hasn't  she?" 

"She  has  enough  attention,  of  course  —  for  the 
funny  part  is  that,  though  she's  only  sixteen  and  not 
nearly  so  pretty  as  Jenny,  the  men  are  all  crazy, 
as  Miss  Willy  says,  about  her.  But,  somehow,  it's 
different.  Lucy  enjoys  it,  but  it  isn't  her  life. 
As  for  Jenny,  she's  still  too  young  to  have  taken 
shape,  I  suppose,  but  she  has  only  one  idea  in  her 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  407 

head  and  that  is  going  to  college.  She  never  gives  a 
boy  a  thought." 

"That's  queer,  because  she  promises  already  to  be 
the  most  beautiful  girl  in  Dinwiddie." 

"She  is  beautiful.  I  am  quite  sure  that  it  isn't 
because  she  is  my  daughter  that  I  think  so.  But,  all 
the  same,  I'm  afraid  she'll  never  be  as  popular  as  Lucy 
is.  She  is  so  distant  and  overbearing  to  men  that  they 
are  shy  of  her." 

"And  you'll  let  her  go  to  college?" 

"If  we  can  afford  it  —  and  now  that  Oliver  hopes  to 
get  one  of  his  plays  put  on,  we  may  have  a  little  more 
money.  But  it  seems  such  a  waste  to  me.  I  never 
saw  that  it  could  possibly  do  a  woman  any  good  to  go 
to  college  —  though  of  course  I  always  sympathized 
with  your  disappointment,  dear  Susan.  Jenny  is  bent 
on  it  now,  but  I  feel  so  strongly  that  it  would  be  better 
for  her  to  come  out  in  Dinwiddie  and  go  to  parties 
and  have  attention." 

"And  does  Oliver  feel  that,  too?" 

"Oh,  he  doesn't  care.  Jenny  is  his  favourite,  and 
he  will  let  her  do  anything  he  thinks  she  has  set  her 
heart  on.  But  he  has  never  put  his  whole  life  into  the 
children's  as  I  have  done." 

"But  if  she  goes,  will  you  be  able  to  send  Harry? " 

"Of  course,  Harry's  education  must  come  before 
everything  else  —  even  Oliver  realizes  that.  Do  you 
know,  I've  hardly  bought  a  match  for  ten  years  that 
I  haven't  stopped  to  ask  myself  if  it  would  take  any 
thing  from  Harry's  education.  That's  why  I've  gone 
as  shabby  as  this  almost  ever  since  he  was  born  —  that 
and  my  longing  to  give  the  girls  a  few  pretty  things." 

"You  haven't  bought  a  dress  for  yourself  since  I  can 


408  VIRGINIA 

remember.  I  should  think  you  would  wear  your 
clothes  out  making  them  over." 

The  look  in  Virginia's  face  showed  that  the  recollec 
tion  Susan  had  invoked  was  not  entirely  a  pleasant  one. 

"I've  done  with  as  little  as  I  could,"  she  answered. 
"Only  once  was  I  really  extravagant,  and  that  was 
when  I  bought  a  light  blue  silk  which  I  didn't  have 
made  up  until  years  afterwards  when  it  was  dyed 
black.  Dyed  things  never  hold  their  own,"  she  con 
cluded  pensively. 

"You  are  too  unselfish  —  that  is  your  only  fault," 
said  Susan  impulsively.  "I  hope  they  appreciate  all 
you  have  been  to  them." 

"Oh,  they  appreciate  me,"  returned  Virginia  with 
a  laugh.  "Harry  does,  anyhow." 

"I  believe  Harry  is  your  darling,  Jinny." 

"I  try  not  to  make  any  difference  in  my  feeling  — 
they  are  all  the  best  children  that  ever  lived  —  but  — 
Susan,  I  wouldn't  breathe  this  to  anybody  on  earth 
but  you  —  I  can't  help  thinking  that  Harry  loves  me 
more  than  the  others  do.  He  —  he  has  so  much  more 
patience  with  me.  The  girls  sometimes  laugh  at  me 
because  I  am  old-fashioned  and  behind  the  times,  and 
I  can  see  that  it  annoys  them  because  I  am  ignorant  of 
things  which  they  seem  to  have  been  born  knowing." 

"But  it  was  for  their  sake  that  you  let  yourself  go  — 
you  gave  up  everything  else  for  them  from  the  minute 
that  they  were  born." 

A  tear  shone  in  Virginia's  eye,  and  Susan  knew, 
without  having  it  put  into  words,  that  a  wound  some 
where  in  that  gen  tie  heart  was  still  hurting.  "I'd  like 
to  slap  them!"  she  thought  fiercely,  and  then  she  said 
aloud  with  a  manner  of  cheerful  conviction : 


THE  CHANGING  ORDER  409 

"You  are  a  great  deal  too  good  for  them,  Jinny, 
and  some  day  they  will  know  it." 

A  longing  came  over  her  to  take  the  thin  little 
figure  in  her  arms  and  shake  back  into  her  something 
of  the  sparkle  and  the  radiance  of  her  girlhood.  Why 
did  beauty  fade?  Why  did  youth  grow  middle-aged? 
Above  all,  why  did  love  and  sacrifice  so  often  work 
their  own  punishment? 


CHAPTER  II 

THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT 

VIRGINIA  knelt  on  the  cushioned  seat  in  the  bay- 
window  of  her  bedroom,  gazing  expectantly  down 
on  the  pavement  below.  It  was  her  forty -fifth  birth 
day,  and  she  was  impatiently  waiting  for  Harry,  who 
was  coming  home  for  a  few  days  before  going  abroad  to 
finish  his  studies  at  Oxford.  The  house  was  a  new, 
impeccably  modern  dwelling,  produced  by  a  triumph 
of  the  utilititarian  genius  of  the  first  decade  of  the 
twentieth  century,  and  Oliver  had  bought  it  at  a 
prodigious  price  a  few  years  after  his  dramatic  success 
had  lifted  him  from  poverty  into  comfort.  The  girls, 
charmed  to  have  made  the  momentous  passage  into 
Sycamore  Street,  were  delighted  with  the  space  and 
elegance  of  their  new  home,  but  Virginia  had  always 
felt  somehow  as  if  she  were  visiting.  The  drawing- 
room,  and  especially  the  butler's  pantry,  awed  her. 
She  had  not  dared  to  wash  those  august  shelves  with 
soda,  nor  to  fasten  her  favourite  strips  of  white  oilcloth 
along  their  shining  surfaces.  The  old  joy  of  "fixing 
up"  her  storeroom  had  been  wrested  from  her  by  the 
supercilious  mulatto  butler,  who  wore  immaculate 
shirt  fronts,  but  whom  she  suspected  of  being  untidy 
beneath  his  magnificent  exterior.  Once  when  she  had 
discovered  a  bucket  of  apple-parings  tucked  away 
under  the  sink,  where  it  had  stood  for  days,  he  had 

410 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  411 

given  "notice"  so  unexpectedly  and  so  haughtily  that 
she  had  been  afraid  ever  since  to  look  under  dish-towels 
or  into  hidden  places  while  he  was  absent.  Out  of  the 
problem  of  the  South  "the  servant  question"  had 
arisen  to  torment  and  intimidate  the  housekeepers  of 
Dinwiddie;  and  inferior  service  at  high  wages  was 
regarded  of  late  as  a  thing  for  which  one  had  come  to 
be  thankful.  Had  they  still  lived  in  the  little  house, 
Virginia  would  gladly  have  done  her  work  for  the  sake 
of  the  peace  and  the  cleanliness  which  it  would  have 
ensured;  but  since  the  change  in  their  circumstances, 
Oliver  and  the  girls  had  grown  so  dependent  upon  the 
small  luxuries  of  living  that  she  put  up  with  anything  — • 
even  with  the  appalling  suspicion  that  every  mouthful 
she  ate  was  not  clean  —  rather  than  take  the  risk  of 
having  her  three  servants  desert  in  a  body.  When 
she  had  unwisely  complained  to  Oliver,  he  had  remarked 
impatiently  that  he  couldn't  be  bothered  about  the 
housekeeping,  and  Lucy  had  openly  accused  her  of 
being  "fussy." 

After  this  she  had  said  nothing  more,  but  gathering 
suddenly  all  her  energies,  she  had  precipitated  a  scene 
with  the  servants  (which  ended  to  her  relief  in  the  depar 
ture  of  the  magnificent  butler)  and  had  reorganized 
at  a  stroke  the  affairs  of  her  household.  For  all  her 
gentleness,  she  was  not  incapable  of  decisive  action,  and 
though  it  had  always  been  easier  for  her  to  work  herself 
than  to  direct  others,  her  native  talent  for  domesticity 
had  enabled  her  to  emerge  triumphantly  out  of  this 
crisis.  Now,  on  her  forty-fifth  birthday,  she  could 
reflect  with  pride  (the  pride  of  a  woman  who  has 
mastered  her  traditional  metier  de  femme)  that  there 
was  not  a  house  in  Dinwiddie  which  had  better  food  or 


412  VIRGINIA 

smoother  service  than  she  provided  in  hers.  For  more 
and  more,  as  Oliver  absorbed  himself  in  his  work,  which 
kept  him  in  New  York  many  months  of  the  year,  and 
the  children  grew  so  big  that  they  no  longer  needed  her, 
did  her  life  centre  around  the  small  monotonous  details 
of  cooking  and  cleaning.  Only  when,  as  occasionally 
happened,  the  rest  of  the  family  were  absent  together, 
Oliver  about  his  plays,  Lucy  on  a  visit  to  Richmond, 
and  Harry  and  Jenny  at  college,  an  awful  sense  of 
futility  descended  upon  her,  and  she  felt  that  both  the 
purpose  and  the  initiative  were  sapped  from  her  char 
acter.  Sometimes,  during  such  days  or  weeks  of  lone 
liness,  she  would  think  of  her  mother's  words,  uttered 
so  often  in  the  old  years  at  the  rectory:  "There  isn't 
any  pleasure  in  making  things  unless  there's  somebody 
to  make  them  for." 

Beyond  the  window,  the  November  day,  which  had 
been  one  of  placid  contentment  for  her,  was  slowly 
drawing  to  its  close.  The  pale  red  line  of  an  autumn 
sunset  lingered  in  the  west  above  the  huddled  roofs 
of  the  town,  while  the  mournful  dusk  of  evening 
was  creeping  up  from  the  earth.  A  few  chilled  and 
silent  sparrows  hopped  dejectedly  along  the  bared 
boughs  of  the  young  maple  tree  in  front  of  the  house, 
and  every  now  and  then  a  brisk  pedestrian  would  pass 
on  the  concrete  pavement  below.  Inside,  a  cheerful 
fire  burned  in  the  grate,  and  near  it,  on  one  end  of  the 
chintz-covered  couch,  lay  Oliver's  present  to  her  — 
a  set  of  black  bear  furs,  which  he  had  brought  down 
with  him  from  New  York.  Turning  away  from  the 
window,  she  slipped  the  neck-piece  over  her  shoulders, 
and  as  she  did  so,  she  tried  to  stifle  the  wonder  whether 
he  would  have  bought  them  —  whether  even  he  would 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  413 

have  remembered  the  date  —  if  Harry  had  not  been 
with  him.  Last  year  he  had  forgotten  her  birthday  — 
and  never  before  had  he  given  her  so  costly  a  present 
as  this.  They  were  beautiful  furs,  but  even  she,  with 
her  ignorance  of  the  subtler  arts  of  dress,  saw  that  they 
were  too  heavy  for  her,  that  they  made  her  look 
shrunken  and  small  and  accentuated  the  pallor  of  her 
skin,  which  had  the  colour  and  the  texture  of  withered 
rose-leaves.  "They  are  just  what  Jenny  has  always 
wanted,  and  they  would  be  so  becoming  to  her.  I 
wonder  if  Oliver  would  mind  my  letting  her  take  them 
back  to  Bryn  Mawr  after  the  holidays?" 

If  Oliver  would  mind!  The  phrase  still  remained 
after  the  spirit  which  sanctified  it  had  long  departed. 
In  her  heart  she  knew  —  though  her  happiness  rested 
upon  her  passionate  evasion  of  the  knowledge  —  that 
Oliver  had  not  only  ceased  to  mind,  that  he  had  even 
ceased  to  notice  whether  she  wore  his  gifts  or  gave 
them  to  Jenny. 

A  light  step  flitted  along  the  hall;  her  door  opened 
without  shutting  again,  and  Lucy,  in  a  street  gown 
made  in  the  princess  style,  hurried  across  the  room  and 
turned  a  slender  back  appealingly  towards  her. 

"Oh,  mother,  please  unhook  me  as  fast  as  you  can. 
The  Peytons  are  going  to  take  me  in  their  car  over 
to  Richmond,  and  I've  only  a  half  hour  in  which  to  get 
ready." 

Then,  as  Virginia's  hands  fumbled  a  little  at  an 
obstinate  hook,  Lucy  gave  an  impatient  pull  of  her 
shoulders,  and  reached  back,  straining  her  arms,  until 
she  tore  the  offending  fastenings  from  her  dress.  She 
was  a  small,  graceful  girl,  not  particularly  pretty,  not 
particularly  clever,  but  possessing  some  indefinable 


414  VIRGINIA 

quality  which  served  her  as  successfully  as  either 
beauty  or  cleverness  could  have  done.  Though  she  was 
the  most  selfish  and  the  least  considerate  of  the  three 
children,  Virginia  was  like  wax  in  her  hands,  and 
regarded  her  dashing,  rather  cynical,  worldliness  with 
naive  and  uncomprehending  respect.  She  secretly 
disapproved  of  Lucy,  but  it  was  a  disapproval  which 
was  tempered  by  admiration.  It  seemed  miraculous 
to  her  that  any  girl  of  twenty-two  should  possess  so 
clearly  formulated  and  critical  a  philosophy  of  life,  or 
should  be  so  utterly  emancipated  from  the  last  shackles 
of  reverence.  As  far  as  her  mother  could  discern,  Lucy 
respected  but  a  single  thing,  and  that  single  thing  was 
her  own  opinion.  For  authority  she  had  as  little 
reverence  as  a  savage;  yet  she  was  not  a  savage,  for 
she  represented  instead  the  perfect  product  of  over- 
civilization.  The  world  was  bounded  for  her  by  her  own 
personality.  She  was  supremely  interested  in  what 
she  thought,  felt,  or  imagined,  and  beyond  the  limits 
of  her  individuality,  she  was  frankly  bored  by  existence. 
The  joys,  sorrows,  or  experiences  of  others  failed  even 
to  arrest  her  attention.  Yet  the  very  simplicity  and 
sincerity  of  her  egoism  robbed  it  of  offensiveness,  and 
raised  it  from  a  trait  of  character  to  the  dignity  of 
a  point  of  view.  The  established  law  of  self-sacrifice 
which  had  guided  her  mother's  life  was  not  only  person 
ally  distasteful  to  her  —  it  was  morally  indefensible. 
She  was  engaged  not  in  illustrating  precepts  of  conduct, 
but  in  realizing  her  independence;  and  this  realization 
of  herself  appeared  to  her  as  the  supreme  and  peculiar 
obligation  of  her  being.  Though  she  was  less  fine  than 
Jenny,  who  in  her  studious  way  was  a  girl  of  much 
character,  she  was  by  no  means  as  superficial  as  she 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  415 

appeared,  and  might  in  time,  aided  by  fortuitous 
circumstances,  make  a  strong  and  capable  woman. 
Her  faults,  after  all,  were  due  in  a  large  measure  to  a 
training  which  had  consistently  magnified  in  her  mind  the 
space  which  she  would  ultimately  occupy  in  the  universe. 

And  she  had  charm.  Without  beauty,  without 
intellect,  without  culture,  she  was  still  able  to  dominate 
her  surroundings  by  her  inexplicable  but  undeniable 
charm.  She  was  one  of  those  women  of  whom  people 
say,  "It  is  impossible  to  tell  what  attracts  men  in  a 
woman."  She  was  indifferent,  she  was  casual,  she  was 
even  cruel;  yet  every  male  creature  she  met  fell  a 
victim  before  her.  Her  slightest  gesture  had  a  fasci 
nation  for  the  masculine  mind;  her  silliest  words  a  sig 
nificance.  "I  declare  men  are  the  biggest  fools  where 
women  are  concerned,"  Miss  Priscilla  had  remarked, 
watching  her;  and  the  words  had  adequately  ex 
pressed  the  opinion  of  the  feminine  half  of  Dinwiddie's 
population. 

From  sixteen  to  twenty-two  she  had  remained  as 
indifferent  as  a  star  to  the  impassioned  moths  flit 
ting  around  her.  Then,  a  month  after  her  twenty- 
second  birthday,  she  had  coolly  announced  her  engage 
ment  to  a  man  whom  she  had  seen  but  six  times  — 
a  widower  at  that,  twelve  years  older  than  herself,  and 
the  father  of  two  children.  The  blow  had  fallen, 
without  warning,  upon  Virginia,  who  had  never  seen 
the  man,  and  did  not  like  what  she  had  heard  of  him. 
Unwisely,  she  had  attempted  to  remonstrate,  and  had 
been  met  by  the  reply,  "Mother,  dear,  you  must  allow 
me  to  decide  what  is  for  my  happiness,"  and  a  manner 
which  said,  "After  all,  you  know  so  much  less  of  life 
than  I  do,  how  can  you  advise  me?" 


416  VIRGINIA 

It  was  intolerable,  of  course,  and  the  worst  of  it  was 
that,  rebel  as  she  might  against  the  admission,  Virginia 
could  not  plausibly  deny  the  truth  of  either  the  remark 
or  the  manner.  On  the  face  of  it,  Lucy  must  know 
best  what  she  wanted,  and  as  for  knowledge  of  life,  she 
was  certainly  justified  in  considering  her  mother  a 
child  beside  her.  Oliver,  when  the  case  was  put  before 
him,  showed  a  sympathy  with  Virginia's  point  of  view 
and  a  moral  inability  to  coerce  his  daughter  into  accept 
ing  it.  "She  knows  I  never  liked  Craven,"  he  said, 
"but  after  all  what  are  we  going  to  do  about  it?  She's 
old  enough  to  decide  for  herself,  and  you  can't  in 
this  century  put  a  girl  on  bread  and  water  because  she 
marries  as  she  chooses." 

Nothing  about  duty!  nothing  about  consideration 
for  her  family !  nothing  about  the  awful  responsibility  of 
entering  lightly  into  such  sacred  relations!  Lucy  was 
evidently  in  love  —  if  she  hadn't  been,  why  on  earth 
should  she  have  precipitated  herself  into  an  affair 
whose  only  reason  was  a  lack  of  reason  that  was  con 
clusive?  —  but  she  might  have  been  engaging  a  chauf 
feur  for  all  the  solemnity  she  put  into  the  arrangements. 
She  had  selected  her  clothes  and  planned  her  wedding 
with  a  practical  wisdom  which  had  awed  and  saddened 
her  mother.  All  the  wistful  sentiments,  the  tender 
evasions,  the  consecrated  dreams  that  had  gone  into 
the  preparations  for  Virginia's  marriage,  were  buried 
somewhere  under  the  fragrant  past  of  the  eighties  — 
and  the  memory  of  them  made  her  feel  not  forty -five, 
but  a  hundred.  Yet  the  thing  that  troubled  her  most 
was  a  feeling  that  she  was  in  the  power  of  forces  which 
she  did  not  understand  —  a  sense  that  there  were  pro 
found  disturbances  beneath  the  familiar  surface  of  life. 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  417 

When  Lucy  had  gone  out,  with  her  dress  open  down 
the  back  and  a  glimpse  of  her  smooth  girlish  shoulders 
showing  between  the  fastenings,  Virginia  went  over  to 
the  window  again,  and  was  rewarded  by  the  sight  of 
Harry's  athletic  figure  crossing  the  street. 

In  a  minute  he  came  in,  kissing  her  with  the  careless 
tenderness  which  was  one  of  her  secret  joys. 

"Halloo!  little  mother!  All  alone?  Where  are  the 
others?"  He  was  the  only  one  of  her  children  who 
appeared  to  enjoy  her,  and  sometimes  when  they  were 
alone  together,  he  would  turn  and  put  his  arms  about 
her,  or  stroke  her  hands  with  an  impulsive,  protecting 
sympathy.  There  were  moments  when  it  seemed  to 
her  that  he  pitied  her  because  the  world  had  moved  on 
without  her;  and  others  when  he  came  to  her  for  counsel 
about  things  of  which  she  was  not  only  ignorant,  but 
even  a  little  afraid.  Once  he  had  consulted  her  as  to 
whether  he  should  go  on  the  football  team  at  his  college, 
and  had  listened  respectfully  enough  to  her  timid 
objections.  Respect,  indeed,  was  the  quality  in  which 
he  had  never  failed  her,  and  this,  even  more  than  his 
affection,  had  become  a  balm  to  her  in  recent  years, 
when  Lucy  and  Jenny  occasionally  lost  patience  and 
showed  themselves  openly  amused  by  her  old-fashioned 
opinions.  She  had  never  forgotten  that  he  had  once 
taken  her  part  when  the  girls  had  tried  to  persuade  her 
to  brush  back  the  little  curls  from  her  temples  and 
wear  her  hair  in  a  pompadour. 

"It  would  look  so  much  more  suitable  for  a  woman 
of  your  age,  mother  dear,"  Lucy  had  remarked  sweetly 
with  a  condescending  deference  which  had  made  Virginia 
feel  as  if  she  were  a  thousand. 

"And  it  would  be  more  becoming,  too,  now  that 


418  VIRGINIA 

your  hair  is  turning  grey,"  Jenny  had  added,  with  an 
intention  to  be  kind  and  helpful  which  had  gone  wrong 
somehow  and  turned  into  officiousness. 

"Shut  up,  and  don't  be  silly  geese,"  Harry  had 
growled  at  them,  and  his  rudeness  in  her  behalf  had 
given  Virginia  a  delicious  thrill,  which  was  increased  by 
the  knowledge  that  his  manners  were  usually  excellent 
even  to  his  sisters.  "You  let  them  fuss  all  they  want 
to,  mother,"  he  concluded,  "but  your  hair  is  a  long  sight 
better  than  theirs,  and  don't  you  let  them  nag  you  into 
making  a  mess  of  it." 

All  of  which  had  been  sweet  beyond  words  to  Virginia, 
though  she  was  obliged  to  admit  that  his  judgment  was 
founded  upon  a  deplorable  lack  of  discrimination  in  the 
matter  of  hairdressing  —  since  Lucy  and  Jenny  both 
had  magnificent  hair,  while  her  own  had  long  since  lost 
its  gloss  and  grown  thin  from  neglect.  But  if  it  had 
been  really  the  truth,  it  could  not  have  been  half  so 
sweet  to  her. 

"Lucy  is  dressing  to  motor  over  to  Richmond  with 
the  Peytons,  and  your  father  went  out  to  ride.  Harry, 
why  won't  you  let  me  go  on  to  New  York  to  see  you 
off?" 

He  was  sailing  the  following  week  for  England, 
and  he  had  forbidden  her  to  come  to  his  boat,  or  even 
to  New  York,  for  a  last  glimpse  of  him. 

"Oh,  I  hate  having  a  scene  at  the  boat,  mother. 
It  always  makes  me  feel  creepy  to  say  good-bye.  I 
never  do  it  if  I  can  help." 

"I  know  you  don't,  darling  —  you  sneaked  off  after 
the  holidays  without  telling  me  what  train  you  were 
going  by.  But  this  is  for  such  a  long  time.  Two 
years,  Harry." 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  419 

Her  voice  broke,  and  turning  away,  she  gazed 
through  the  window  at  the  young  maple  tree  as  though 
her  very  soul  were  concentrated  upon  the  leafless 
boughs. 

He  stirred  uneasily,  for  like  most  men  of  twenty-one, 
he  had  a  horror  of  sentiment. 

"Oh,  well,  you  may  come  over  next  summer,  you 
know.  I'll  speak  to  father  about  it.  If  his  play  goes 
over  to  London,  he'll  have  to  be  there,  won't  he?  " 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  replied,  choking  down  her 
tears,  and  becoming  suddenly  cheerful.  "And  you'll 
write  to  me  once  a  week,  Harry?" 

"You  bet!  By  the  way,  I've  had  nothing  to  eat 
since  ten  o'clock,  and  I  feel  rather  gone.  Have  you 
some  cake  around  anywhere?" 

"But  we'll  have  supper  in  half  an  hour,  and  I've 
ordered  waffles  and  fried  chicken  for  you.  Hadn't 
you  better  wait?" 

Her  cheerfulness  was  not  assumed  now,  for  with  the 
turn  to  practical  matters,  she  felt  suddenly  that  the 
universe  had  righted  itself.  Even  Harry's  departure 
was  forgotten  in  the  immediate  necessity  of  providing 
for  his  appetite. 

"Well,  I'll  wait,  but  I  hope  you've  prepared  for  an 
army.  I  could  eat  a  hundred  waffles." 

He  snapped  his  jaws,  and  she  laughed  delightedly. 
For  all  his  twenty-one  years,  and  the  scholarship 
which  he  had  won  so  easily  and  which  was  taking  him 
abroad,  he  was  as  boyish  and  as  natural  as  he  had  been 
at  ten.  Even  his  love  of  sweets  had  not  lessened  with 
the  increase  of  his  dignity.  To  think  of  his  demanding 
cake  the  minute  after  he  had  entered  the  house ! 

"Father's  play  made  a  great  hit,"  he  said  presently, 


420  VIRGINIA 

still  steering  carefully  away  from  the  reefs  of  emotion. 
"I  suppose  you  read  all  about  it  in  the  papers?" 

She  shook  her  head,  smiling.  Though  she  tried  her 
best  to  be  as  natural  and  as  unemotional  as  he  was,  she 
could  not  keep  her  adoration  out  of  her  eyes,  which 
feasted  on  him  like  the  eyes  of  one  who  had  starved 
for  months.  How  handsome  he  was,  with  his  broad 
shoulders,  his  fine  sunburned  face,  and  his  frank,  boyish 
smile.  It  was  a  pity  he  had  to  wear  glasses  —  yet  even 
his  glasses  seemed  to  her  individual  and  charming. 
She  couldn't  imagine  a  single  way  in  which  he  could  be 
improved,  and  all  the  while  she  was  perfectly  sure  that 
it  wasn't  in  the  least  because  she  was  his  mother  — 
that  she  wasn't  a  bit  prejudiced  in  her  judgment. 
It  appeared  out  of  the  question  that  anybody  —  even 
a  stranger  —  could  have  found  fault  with  him.  "No, 
I  haven't  had  time  to  read  the  papers  —  I've  been  so 
busy  getting  ready  for  Lucy's  wedding,"  she  answered. 
"But  your  father  told  me  about  it.  It  must  be  splen 
did  —  only  I  wish  he  wouldn't  speak  so  contemptuously 
of  it,"  she  added  regretfully.  "He  says  it's  trash,  and 
yet  I'm  sure  everybody  spoke  well  of  it,  and  they  say 
it  is  obliged  to  make  a  great  deal  of  money.  I  can't 
understand  why  his  success  seems  to  irritate  rather 
than  please  him." 

"Well,  he  thinks,  you  know,  that  it  is  only  since  he's 
cheapened  himself  that  he  has  had  any  hearing." 

"Cheapened  himself?"  she  repeated  wistfully. 
"But  his  first  plays  failed  entirely,  so  these  last  ones 
must  be  a  great  deal  better  if  they  are  such  splendid 
successes." 

"Well,  I  suppose  it's  hard  for  us  to  understand  his 
point  of  view.  We  talked  about  it  one  night  in  New 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  421 

York  when  we  were  dining  with  Margaret  Oldcastle  — 
she  takes  the  leading  part  in  *  Pretty  Fanny/  you 
know." 

"  Yes,  I  know.     What  is  she  like?  " 

A  strange,  still  look  came  into  her  face,  as  though 
she  waited  with  suspended  breath  for  his  answer. 

"She's  a  charmer  on  the  stage.  I  heard  father  tell 
her  that  she  made  the  play,  and  I'm  not  sure  that  he 
wasn't  right." 

"But  you  saw  her  off  the  stage,  didn't  you?" 

"Oh,  yes,  she  asked  me  to  dinner.  She  didn't 
look  nearly  so  young,  then,  and  she's  not  exactly  pretty ; 
but,  somehow,  it  didn't  seem  to  matter.  She's  got 
genius  —  you  couldn't  be  with  her  ten  minutes  without 
finding  out  that.  I  never  saw  any  one  in  my  life  so 
much  alive.  When  she's  in  a  room,  even  if  she  doesn't 
speak,  you  can't  keep  your  eyes  off  her.  She's  like  a 
bright  flame  that  you  can't  stop  looking  at  —  not  even 
if  there  are  a  lot  of  prettier  women  there,  too." 

"Is  she  dark  or  fair?" 

He  stopped  to  think  for  a  moment. 

"To  save  my  life  I  can't  remember  —  but  I  think 
she's  dark  —  at  least,  her  eyes  are,  though  her  hair 
may  be  light.  But  you  never  think  of  her  appearance 
when  she's  talking.  I  believe  she's  the  best  talker 
I  ever  heard  —  better  even  than  father." 

His  enthusiasm  had  got  the  better  of  him,  and  it  was 
evident  that  Oliver's  success  had  banished  for  a  time 
at  least  the  secret  hostility  which  had  existed  between 
father  and  son.  That  passion  for  material  results, 
which  could  not  be  separated  from  the  Treadwell 
spirit  without  robbing  that  spirit  of  its  vitality,  had 
gradually  altered  the  family  attitude  toward  Oliver's 


422  VIRGINIA 

profession.  Art,  like  business,  must  justify  itself  by 
its  results,  and  to  a  commercial  age  there  could  be  no 
justifiable  results  that  could  not  bear  translation  into 
figures.  Success  was  the  chief  end  of  man,  and  success 
could  be  measured  only  in  terms  of  money. 

" There's  your  father's  step,"  said  Virginia,  whose 
face  looked  drawn  and  pallid  in  the  dusk.  "Let  me 
light  the  lamp,  darling.  He  hates  to  read  his  paper  by 
anything  but  lamplight." 

But  he  had  jumped  up  before  she  had  finished  and 
was  hunting  for  matches  in  the  old  place  under  the 
clock  on  the  mantelpiece.  She  was  such  a  little,  thin,  frail 
creature  that  he  laughed  as  she  tried  to  help  him. 

"So  Lucy  is  going  to  marry  that  old  rotter,  is  she?" 
he  asked  pleasantly  as  his  father  entered.  "Well, 
father!  I  was  just  asking  mother  why  she  let  Lucy 
marry  that  old  rotter?" 

"But  the  dear  child  has  set  her  heart  on  him,  and 
he  is  really  very  nice  to  us,"  replied  Virginia  hurriedly. 
Though  she  was  disappointed  in  Lucy's  choice,  it 
seemed  dreadful  to  her  to  speak  of  a  man  who  was 
about  to  enter  the  family  as  a  "rotter." 

"You  stop  it,  Harry,  if  you  have  the  authority. 
I  haven't,"  answered  Oliver  carelessly.  "Is  your 
neuralgia  better,  Virginia?" 

"It's  quite  gone,  dear.  Doctor  Powell  gave  me  some 
aspirin  and  it  cured  it."  She  smiled  gratefully  at  him, 
with  a  touching  pleasure  in  the  fact  that  he  had  remem 
bered  to  ask.  As  she  glanced  quickly  from  father  to 
son,  eager  to  see  them  reconciled,  utterly  forgetful  of 
herself,  something  of  the  anxious  cheerfulness  of  Mrs. 
Pendleton's  spirit  appeared  to  live  again  in  her  look. 
Though  her  freshness  had  withered,  she  was  still  what 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  423 

is  called  "a  sweet  looking  woman,"  and  her  expression 
of  simple  goodness  lent  an  appealing  charm  to  her 
features. 

"Are  you  going  back  to  New  York  soon,  father?" 
asked  Harry,  turning  politely  in  Oliver's  direction. 
From  his  manner,  which  had  lost  its  boyishness, 
Virginia  knew  that  he  was  trying  with  all  his  energy  to 
be  agreeable,  yet  that  he  could  not  overcome  the  old 
feeling  of  constraint  and  lack  of  sympathy. 

"Next  week.  'The  Home'  is  to  be  put  on  in  Feb 
ruary,  and  I'm  obliged  to  be  there  for  the  rehearsals." 

"Does  Miss  Oldcastle  take  the  leading  part?" 

"Yes." 

Crossing  the  room,  Oliver  held  out  his  hands  to  the 
fire,  and  then  turning,  stretched  his  arms,  with  a 
stifled  yawn,  above  his  head.  The  only  fault  that 
could  be  urged  against  his  appearance  was  that  his 
figure  was  becoming  a  trifle  square,  that  he  was 
beginning  to  look  a  little  too  well-fed,  a  little  too 
comfortable.  For  the  rest,  his  hair,  which  had  gone 
quite  grey,  brought  out  the  glow  and  richness  of  his 
colour  and  lent  a  striking  emphasis  to  his  dark,  shining 
eyes. 

"Do  you  think  that  the  new  play  is  as  good  as 
4 Pretty  Fanny'?"  asked  Virginia. 

"Well,  they're  both  rot,  you  know,"  he  answered, 
with  a  laugh. 

"Oh,  Oliver,  how  can  you,  when  all  the  papers  spoke 
so  admiringly  of  it?" 

"Why  shouldn't  they?  It  is  perfectly  innocuous. 
The  kind  of  thing  any  father  might  take  his  daughter 
to  see.  We  shan't  dispute  that,  anyhow." 

His  flippancy  not  only  hurt,  it  confused  her.     It  was 


424  VIRGINIA 

painful  enough  to  have  him  speak  so  slightingly  of 
his  success,  but  worse  than  this  was  the  feeling  it 
aroused  in  her  that  he  was  defying  authority.  Even 
if  her  innate  respect  for  the  printed  word  had  not 
made  her  accept  as  final  the  judgment  of  the  news 
papers,  there  was  still  the  incontestable  fact  that  so 
many  people  had  paid  to  see  "Pretty  Fanny"  that  both 
Oliver  and  Miss  Oldcastle  had  reaped  a  small  fortune. 
She  glanced  in  a  helpless  way  at  Harry,  and  he  said 
suddenly : 

"Don't  you  think  Jenny  ought  to  come  home  to  be 
with  mother  after  Lucy  marries?  You  are  obliged  to 
go  to  New  York  so  often  that  she  will  get  lonely." 

"It's  a  good  idea,"  agreed  Oliver  amiably,  "but 
there's  another  case  where  you'll  have  to  use  greater 
authority  than  mine.  When  I  stopped  reforming 
people,"  he  added  gaily,  "I  began  with  my  own  family." 

"The  dear  child  would  come  in  a  minute  if  I  sug 
gested  it,"  said  Virginia,  "but  she  enjoys  her  life  at 
college  so  much  that  I  wouldn't  have  her  give  it  up  for 
anything  in  the  world.  It  would  make  me  miserable 
to  think  that  any  of  my  children  made  a  sacrifice 
for  me." 

"You  needn't  worry.  We've  trained  them  differ 
ently,"  said  Oliver,  and  though  his  tone  was  slightly 
satirical,  the  satire  was  directed  at  himself,  not  at  his  wife. 

"I  am  sure  it  is  what  I  should  never  want,"  insisted 
Virginia,  almost  passionately,  while  she  rose  in  response 
to  the  announcement  of  supper,  and  met  Lucy,  in 
trailing  pink  chiffon,  on  the  threshold. 

"Are  you  sure  your  coat  is  warm  enough,  dear?" 
she  asked.  "Wouldn't  you  like  to  wear  my  furs? 
They  are  heavier  than  yours." 


THE  PRICE  OF  COMFORT  425 

"Oh,  I'd  love  to,  if  you  wouldn't  mind,  mother." 

Raising  herself  on  tiptoe,  Lucy  kissed  Harry,  and 
then  ran  to  the  mirror,  eager  to  see  if  the  black  fur 
looked  well  on  her. 

"They're  just  lovely  on  me,  mother.  I  feel  gor 
geous!"  she  exclaimed  triumphantly,  and  indeed  her 
charming  girlish  face  rose  like  a  white  flower  out  of  the 
rich  dark  furs. 

In  Virginia's  eyes,  as  she  turned  back  in  the  doorway 
to  watch  her,  there  was  a  radiant  self-forgetfulness 
which  illumined  her  features.  For  a  moment  she 
lived  so  completely  in  her  daughter's  youth  that  her 
body  seemed  to  take  warmth  and  colour  from  the 
emotion  which  transfigured  her. 

"I  am  so  glad,  darling,"  she  said.  "It  gives  me 
more  pleasure  to  see  you  in  them  than  it  does  to  wear 
them  myself."  And  though  she  did  not  know  it,  she 
embodied  her  gentle  philosophy  of  life  in  that  single 
sentence. 


CHAPTER  III 

MIDDLE-AGE 

JENNY  had  promised  to  come  home  a  week  before 
Lucy's  wedding,  but  at  the  last  moment,  while 
they  waited  supper  for  her,  a  telegram  announced 
with  serious  brevity  that  she  was  "detained."  Twenty- 
four  hours  later  a  second  telegram  informed  them 
that  she  would  not  arrive  until  the  evening  before  the 
marriage,  and  at  six  o'clock  on  that  day,  Virginia,  who 
had  been  packing  Lucy's  trunks  ever  since  breakfast, 
looked  out  of  the  window  at  the  sound  of  the  door-bell, 
and  saw  the  cab  which  had  contained  her  second 
daughter  standing  beside  the  curbstone. 

"Mother,  have  you  the  change  to  pay  the  driver?" 
asked  a  vision  of  stern  loveliness  floating  into  the  room. 
With  the  winter's  glow  in  her  cheeks  and  eyes  and 
the  bronze  sheen  on  her  splendid  hair,  which  was 
brushed  in  rippling  waves  from  her  forehead  and 
coiled  in  a  severely  simple  knot  on  her  neck,  she  might 
have  been  a  wandering  goddess,  who  had  descended, 
with  immortal  calm,  to  direct  the  affairs  of  the  house 
hold.  Her  white  shirtwaist,  with  its  starched  severity, 
suited  her  austere  beauty  and  her  look  of  almost 
superhuman  composure. 

"Take  off  your  hat,  darling,  and  lie  down  on  the 
couch  while  I  finish  Lucy's  packing,"  said  Virginia, 
when  she  had  sent  the  servant  downstairs  to  pay  the 

426 


MIDDLE-AGE  427 

cabman.  Her  soul  was  in  her  eyes  while  she  watched 
Jenny  remove  her  plain  felt  hat,  with  its  bit  of  blue 
scarf  around  the  crown  —  a  piece  of  millinery  which 
presented  a  deceptive  appearance  of  inexpensiveness  — 
and  pass  the  comb  through  the  shining  arch  of  her  hair. 

"I  am  so  sorry,  mother  dear,  I  couldn't  come  before, 
but  there  were  some  important  lectures  I  really  couldn't 
afford  to  miss.  I  am  specializing  in  biology,  you  know." 

Her  manner,  calm,  sweet,  and  gently  condescending, 
was  such  as  she  might  have  used  to  a  child  whom  she 
loved  and  with  whom  she  possessed  an  infinite  patience. 
One  felt  that  while  talking,  she  groped  almost  uncon 
sciously  for  the  simplest  and  shortest  words  in  which 
her  meaning  might  be  conveyed.  She  did  not  lie  down 
as  Virginia  had  suggested,  but  straightening  her  short 
skirt,  seated  herself  in  an  upright  chair  by  the  table  and 
crossed  her  slender  feet  in  their  sensible,  square-toed 
shoes.  While  she  gazed  at  her,  Virginia  remembered,  f 
with  a  smile,  that  Harry  had  once  said  his  sister  was 
as  flawless  as  a  geometrical  figure,  and  he  couldn't 
look  at  her  without  wanting  to  twist  her  nose 
out  of  shape.  In  spite  of  her  beauty,  she  was  not 
attractive  to  men,  whom  she  awed  and  intimidated  by 
a  candid  assumption  of  superiority.  For  Lucy's  con 
scienceless  treatment  of  the  male  she  had  unmitigated 
contempt.  Her  sister,  indeed,  had  she  not  been  her 
sister,  would  have  appeared  to  her  as  an  object  for 
frank  condemnation  —  "one  of  those  women  who 
waste  themselves  in  foolish  flirtations."  As  it  was, 
loving  Lucy,  and  being  a  loyal  soul,  with  very  scientific 
ideas  of  her  own  responsibility  for  her  sister  as  well  as 
for  that  abstract  creature  whom  she  classified  as  "the 
working  woman, "  she  thought  of  Lucy  tenderly  as  a 


438  VIRGINIA 

"dear  girl,  but  simple."  Her  mother,  of  course,  was, 
also,  "simple";  but,  then,  what  could  one  expect  of  a 
woman  whose  only  education  had  been  at  the  Dinwiddie 
Academy  for  Young  Ladies?  To  Jenny,  education 
had  usurped  the  place  which  the  church  had  always 
occupied  in  the  benighted  mind  of  her  mother.  All 
the  evils  of  our  civilization  —  and  these  evils  shared 
with  the  working  woman  the  first  right  to  her  attention 
—  she  attributed  to  the  fact  that  the  former  genera 
tions  of  women  had  had  either  no  education  at  all,  or 
worse  even  than  that,  had  had  the  meretricious  brand 
of  education  which  was  supplied  by  an  army  of  Miss 
Priscillas.  For  Miss  Priscilla  herself,  entirely  apart 
from  the  Academy,  which  she  described  frankly,  to 
Virginia's  horror,  as  "a  menace,"  she  entertained  a 
sincere  devotion,  and  this  ability  to  detach  her  judg 
ments  from  her  affections  made  her  appear  almost 
miraculously  wise  to  her  mother,  who  had  been  born 
a  Pendleton. 

"No,  I'm  not  tired.  Is  there  anything  I  can  help 
you  about,  mother?"  she  asked,  for  she  was  a  good 
child  and  very  helpful  —  the  only  drawback  to  her 
assistance  being  that  when  she  helped  she  invariably 
commanded. 

"Oh,  no,  darling,  I'll  be  through  presently  —  just 
as  soon  as  I  get  this  trunk  packed.  Lucy's  things 
are  lovely.  I  wish  you  had  come  in  time  to  see  them. 
Miss  Willy  and  I  spent  all  yesterday  running  blue 
ribbons  in  her  underclothes,  and  though  we  began 
before  breakfast,  we  had  to  sit  up  until  twelve  o'clock 
so  as  to  get  through  in  time  to  begin  on  the  trunks 
this  morning." 

Her  eyes  shone  as  she  spoke,  and  she  would  have 


MIDDLE-AGE  429 

enjoyed  describing  all  Lucy's  clothes,  for  she  loved 
pretty  things,  though  she  never  bought  them  for  her 
self,  finding  it  impossible  to  break  the  habit  of  more 
than  twenty  years  of  economy;  but  Jenny,  who  was 
proud  of  her  sincerity,  looked  so  plainly  bored  that  she 
checked  her  flowing  descriptions. 

"I  hope  you  brought  something  beautiful  to  wear 
to-morrow,  Jenny?"  she  ventured  timidly,  after  a 
silence. 

"Of  course  I  had  to  get  a  new  dress,  as  I'm  to  be 
maid  of  honour,  but  it  seemed  so  extravagant,  for  I 
had  two  perfectly  good  white  chiffons  already." 

"But  it  would  have  hurt  Lucy,  dear,  if  you  hadn't 
worn  something  new.  She  even  wanted  me  to  order  my 
dress  from  New  York,  but  I  was  so  afraid  of  wounding 
poor  little  Miss  Willy  —  she  has  made  my  clothes  ever 
since  I  could  remember  —  that  I  persuaded  the  child 
to  let  her  make  it.  Of  course,  it  won't  be  stylish,  but 
nobody  will  look  at  me  anyway." 

"I  hope  it  is  coloured,  mother.  You  wear  black  too 
much.  The  psychological  effect  is  not  good  for  you." 

With  her  knees  on  the  floor  and  her  back  bent  over 
the  trunk  into  which  she  was  packing  a  dozen  pairs  of 
slippers  wrapped  in  tissue  paper,  Virginia  turned  her 
head  and  stared  in  bewilderment  at  her  daughter, 
whose  classic  profile  showed  like  marble  flushed  with 
rose  in  the  lamplight. 

"But  at  my  time  of  life,  dear?  Why,  I'm  in  my 
forty-sixth  year." 

"But  forty-six  is  still  young,  mother.  That  was  one 
of  the  greatest  mistakes  women  used  to  make  —  to 
imagine  that  they  must  be  old  as  soon  as  men  ceased  to 
make  love  to  them.  It  was  all  due  to  the  idea  that  men 


430  VIRGINIA 

admired  only  schoolgirls  and  that  as  soon  as  a  woman 
stopped  being  admired  she  had  stopped  living." 

"But  they  didn't  stop  living  really.  They  merely 
stopped  fixing  up." 

"Oh,  of  course.  They  spent  the  rest  of  their  lives 
in  the  storeroom  or  the  kitchen  slaving  for  the  comfort 
of  the  men  they  could  no  longer  amuse." 

This  so  aptly  described  Virginia's  own  situation  that 
her  interest  in  Lucy's  trousseau  faded  abruptly,  while 
a  wave  of  heartsickness  swept  over  her.  It  was  as  if 
the  sharp  and  searching  light  of  truth  had  fallen 
suddenly  upon  all  the  frail  and  lovely  pretences  by 
which  she  had  helped  herself  to  live  and  to  be  happy. 
A  terror  of  the  preternatural  insight  of  youth  made  her 
turn  her  face  away  from  Jenny's  too  critical  eyes. 

"But  what  else  could  they  do,  Jenny?  They  be 
lieved  that  it  was  right  to  step  back  and  make  room 
for  the  young,"  she  said,  with  a  pitiful  attempt  at 
justification  of  her  exploded  virtues. 

"Oh,  mother!"  exclaimed  Jenny  still  sweetly,  "who 
ever  heard  of  a  man  of  that  generation  stepping  back 
to  make  room  for  anybody?  " 

"But  men  are  different,  darling.  One  doesn't 
expect  them  to  give  up  like  women." 

"Oh,  mother!"  -  this  time  the  sweetness  had 
borrowed  an  edge  of  irony.  It  was  Science  annihilating 
tradition,  and  the  tougher  the  tradition,  the  keener 
the  blade  which  Science  must  apply. 

"I  can't  help  it,  dear,  it  is  the  way  I  was  taught. 
My  darling  mother  felt  like  that"  —a  tear  glistened 
in  her  eye  —  "and  I  am  too  old  to  change  my  way  of 
thinking." 

"Mother,    mother,    you    silly    pet!"     Rising    from 


MIDDLE-AGE  431 

her  chair,  Jenny  put  her  arms  about  her  and  kissed 
her  tenderly.  "You  can't  help  being  old-fashioned, 
I  know.  You  are  not  to  blame  for  your  ideas;  it  is 
Miss  Priscilla."  Her  voice  grew  stern  with  con 
demnation  as  she  uttered  the  name.  "But  don't  you 
think  you  might  try  to  see  things  a  little  more  ration 
ally?  It  is  for  your  own  sake  I  am  speaking.  Why 
should  you  make  yourself  old  by  dressing  as  if  you  were 
eighty  simply  because  your  grandmother  did  so?" 

She  was  right,  of  course,  for  the  trouble  with 
Science  is  not  its  blindness,  but  its  serene  infallibility. 
As  useless  to  reject  her  conclusions  as  to  deny  the  laws 
and  the  principles  of  mathematics!  After  all  manner 
of  denials,  the  laws  and  the  principles  would  still  remain. 
Virginia,  who  had  never  argued  in  her  life,  did  not 
attempt  to  do  so  with  her  own  daughter.  She  merely 
accepted  the  truth  of  Jenny's  inflexible  logic;  and 
with  that  obstinate  softness  which  is  an  inalienable 
quality  of  tradition,  went  on  believing  precisely  what 
she  had  believed  before.  To  have  made  them  think 
alike,  it  would  have  been  necessary  to  melt  up  the  two 
generations  and  pour  them  into  one  —  a  task  as  hope 
less  as  an  endeavour  to  blend  the  Dinwiddie  Young 
Ladies'  Academy  with  a  modern  college.  Jenny's 
clearly  formulated  and  rather  loud  morality  was  un 
intelligible  to  her  mother,  whose  conception  of  duty 
was  that  she  should  efface  herself  and  make  things 
comfortable  for  those  around  her.  The  obligation 
to  think  independently  was  as  incomprehensible  to 
Virginia  as  was  that  wider  altruism  which  had  swept 
Jenny's  sympathies  beyond  the  home  into  the  fac 
tory  and  beyond  the  factory  into  the  world  where 
there  were  "evils."  Her  own  instinct  had  always 


432  VIRGINIA 

been  the  true  instinct  of  the  lady  to  avoid  "evil,"  not 
to  seek  it,  to  avoid  it,  honestly  if  possible,  and,  if 
not  honestly  —  well,  to  avoid  it  at  any  cost.  The 
love  of  truth  for  truth's  sake  was  one  of  the  last  of  the 
virtues  to  descend  from  philosophy  into  a  working 
theory  of  life,  and  it  had  been  practically  unknown  to 
Virginia  until  Jenny  had  returned,  at  the  end  of  her  first 
year,  from  college.  To  be  sure,  Oliver  used  to  talk 
like  that  long  ago,  but  it  was  so  long  ago  that  she 
had  almost  forgotten  it. 

"You  are  very  clever,  dear  —  much  too  clever  for 
me,"  she  said,  rising  from  her  knees.  "I  wonder  if 
Lucy  has  anything  else  she  wants  to  go  into  this 
trunk?  It  might  be  packed  a  little  tighter." 

In  response  to  her  call,  the  door  opened  and  Lucy 
entered  breathlessly,  with  her  hair,  which  she  had 
washed  and  not  entirely  dried,  hanging  over  her 
shoulders. 

"What  is  it,  mother?  Oh,  Jenny,  you  have  come! 
I'm  so  glad!" 

The  sisters  kissed  delightedly.  In  spite  of  their  lack 
of  sympathy,  they  were  very  fond  of  each  other. 

"Do  you  want  to  put  anything  else  in  this  trunk 
before  I  lock  it,  Lucy?" 

"Could  you  find  room  for  my  blue  flannel  bath 
robe?  I'll  want  it  on  top  where  I  can  get  it  out  with 
out  unpacking,  and,  oh,  mother,  won't  you  please 
put  my  alcohol  stove  and  curling  irons  in  my  travel 
ling  bag?" 

She  was  prettily  excited,  and  during  the  last  few 
days  she  had  shown  an  almost  child-like  confidence  in 
her  mother's  opinions  about  the  trivial  matters  of 
packing. 


MIDDLE-AGE  433 

"Mother,  I  don't  want  to  come  down  yet  —  my 
hair  isn't  dry.  Will  you  send  supper  up  to  me?  I'll 
dress  about  nine  o'clock  when  Bertie  and  the  girls 
are  coming." 

"Of  course  I  will,  darling.  I'll  go  straight  down 
stairs  and  fix  your  tray.  Is  there  anything  you  can 
think  of  that  you  would  like?  " 

At  this  Jenny  broke  into  a  laugh:  "Why,  any 
body  would  think  she  was  dying  instead  of  being 
married!" 

"Just  a  cup  of  coffee.  I  really  couldn't  swallow 
a  morsel,"  replied  Lucy,  whose  single  manifestation 
of  sentiment  had  been  a  complete  loss  of  appetite. 
"You  needn't  laugh,  Jenny.  Wait  until  you  are 
going  to  be  married,  and  see  if  you  are  able  to  eat 
anything." 

Putting  the  tray  back  into  the  trunk,  Virginia 
closed  it  almost  caressingly.  For  twenty-four  hours, 
as  Lucy's  wedding  began  to  draw  nearer,  she  had  been 
haunted  by  the  feeling  that  she  was  losing  her  fav 
ourite  child,  and  though  her  reason  told  her  that  this 
was  not  true  —  that  Lucy  was,  in  fact,  less  fond  of  her 
than  either  of  the  others,  and  far  less  dear  to  her  heart 
than  Harry  —  still  she  was  unable  wholly  to  banish 
the  impression.  It  seemed  only  yesterday  that  she 
had  sat  waiting,  month  after  month,  week  after 
week,  day  after  day,  for  her  to  be  born.  Only 
yesterday  that  she  had  held  her,  a  baby,  in  her  arms, 
and  now  she  was  packing  the  clothes  which  that  baby 
would  carry  away  when  she  went  off  with  her  husband ! 
Something  of  the  hushed  expectancy  of  those  long 
months  of  approaching  motherhood  enveloped  her 
again  with  the  thought  of  Lucy's  wedding  to-morrow. 


434  VIRGINIA 

After  all,  Lucy  was  her  first  child  —  neither  of  the 
others  had  been  awaited  with  quite  the  same  brooding 
ecstasy,  with  quite  the  same  radiant  dreams.  To 
neither  of  the  others  had  she  given  herself  at  the  hour  of 
birth  with  such  an  abandonment  of  her  soul  and  body. 
And  she  had  been  a  good  child  —  all  day  with  a  lump 
in  her  throat  Virginia  had  assured  herself  again  and 
again  that  no  child  could  have  been  better.  A  hun 
dred  little  charming  ways,  a  hundred  bright  delicious 
tricks  of  expression  and  of  voice,  followed  her  from 
room  to  room,  as  though  Lucy  had  indeed,  as  Jenny 
said,  been  dying  upstairs  instead  of  waiting  to  be 
married.  And  all  the  time,  while  she  arranged  the 
supper  tray  and  attended  to  the  making  of  the  coffee 
so  that  it  might  be  perfect,  she  was  thinking,  "Mother 
must  have  felt  like  this  when  I  was  married  and  I 
never  knew  it,  I  never  suspected."  She  saw  her  little 
bedroom  at  the  rectory,  with  her  own  figure,  in  the 
floating  tulle  veil,  reflected  in  the  mirror,  and  her  moth 
er's  face,  that  face  from  which  all  remembrance  of 
self  seemed  to  have  vanished,  looking  at  her  over 
the  bride's  bouquet  of  white  roses.  If  only  she  had 
told  her  then  that  she  understood!  If  only  she  had 
ever  really  understood  until  to-night !  If  only  it  was 
not  too  late  to  turn  back  now  and  gather  that  plain 
tive  figure,  waiting  with  the  white  roses,  into  her  arms ! 

The  next  morning  she  was  up  at  daybreak,  finish 
ing  the  packing,  preparing  the  house  before  leav 
ing  for  church,  making  the  final  arrangements  for 
the  wedding  breakfast.  When  at  last  Lucy,  with 
reddened  eyes  and  tightly  curled  hair,  appeared  in 
the  pantry  while  her  mother  was  helping  to  wash 
a  belated  supply  of  glass  and  china  which  had  arrived 


MIDDLE-AGE  435 

from  the  caterer's,  Virginia  felt  that  the  parting  was 
worse  even  than  Harry's  going  to  college. 

"Mother,  I've  the  greatest  mind  on  earth  not 
to  do  it." 

"My  pet,  what  is  the  matter?" 

"I  can't  imagine  why  I  ever  thought  I  wanted  to 
marry!  I  don't  want  to  do  it  a  bit.  I  don't  want 
to  go  away  and  leave  you  and  father.  And,  mother, 
I  really  don't  believe  that  I  love  him!" 

It  was  so  like  Lucy  after  months  of  cool  deter 
mination,  of  perfect  assurance,  of  stubborn  resistance 
to  opposition  —  it  was  so  exactly  like  her  to  break 
down  when  it  was  too  late  and  to  begin  to  question 
whether  she  really  wanted  her  own  way  after  she 
had  won  it.  And  it  was  so  like  Virginia  that  at  the 
first  sign  of  weakness  in  her  child  she  should  grow 
suddenly  strong  and  efficient. 

"My  darling,  it  is  only  nervousness.  You  will  be 
better  as  soon  as  you  begin  to  dress.  Come  upstairs 
and  I  will  fix  you  a  dose  of  aromatic  ammonia." 

"Do  you  really  think  it's  too  late  to  stop  it?" 

"Not  if  you  feel  you  are  going  to  regret  it,  but 
you  must  be  very  sure  that  it  isn't  merely  a  mood, 
Lucy." 

At  the  first  sign  that  the  step  was  not  yet  irrevo 
cable,  the  girl's  courage  returned. 

"Well,  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  get  married  now," 
she  said,  "but  if  I  don't  like  it,  I'm  not  going  to  live 
with  him." 

"  Not  live  with  your  husband !     Why,  Lucy ! " 

"It's  perfectly  absurd  to  think  I'll  have  to  live 
with  a  man  if  I  find  I  don't  love  him.  Ask  Jenny 
if  it  isn't." 


436  VIRGINIA 

Ask  Jenny!  This  was  her  incredible  suggestion! 
This  was  her  reverence  for  authority,  for  duty,  for  the 
thundering  admonitions  of  Saint  Paul!  As  far  as 
Saint  Paul  was  concerned,  he  might  as  well  have  been 
the  ponderous  anecdotal  minister  in  the  brick  Pres 
byterian  church  around  the  corner. 

"But  Jenny  is  so  —  so "  murmured  Virginia, 

and  stopped  because  words  failed  her.  Had  Jenny 
been  born  in  any  family  except  her  own,  she  would 
probably  have  described  her  as  "dangerous,"  but 
it  was  impossible  to  brand  her  daughter  with  so 
opprobrious  an  epithet.  The  word,  owing  to  the 
metaphorical  yet  specific  definition  of  it  which  she 
had  derived  from  the  rector's  sermons  in  her  child 
hood,  invariably  suggested  fire  and  brimstone  to 
her  imagination. 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  to  do  it  unless  I  want  to," 
returned  Lucy  positively.  "And  you  may  look 
as  shocked  as  you  please,  mother,  but  you  needn't 
pretend  that  you  wouldn't  be  glad  to  see  me." 

The  difference  between  the  two  girls,  as  far  as 
Virginia  could  see,  was  that  Jenny  really  believed 
her  awful  ideas  were  right,  and  Lucy  merely  believed 
that  they  might  help  her  the  more  effectively  to  follow 
her  wishes. 

"Of  course  I'd  be  glad  to  see  you,  but,  Lucy,  it 
pains  me  so  to  hear  you  speak  flippantly  of  your 
marriage.  It  is  the  most  sacred  day  in  your  life, 
and  you  treat  it  as  lightly  as  if  it  were  a  picnic." 

"Do  I?     Poor  little  day,  have  I  hurt  its  feelings?" 

They  were  on  the  way  upstairs,  following  a  pro 
cession  of  wedding  presents  which  had  just  arrived 
by  express,  and  glancing  round  over  the  heads  of 


MIDDLE-AGE  437 

the  servants,  she  made  a  laughing  face  at  her  mother. 
Clearly,  she  was  incorrigible,  and  her  passing  fear, 
which  had  evidently  been  entirely  due,  as  Virginia 
had  suspected,  to  one  of  her  rare  attacks  of  nervous 
ness,  had  entirely  disappeared.  In  her  normal  mood 
she  was  perfectly  capable  of  taking  care  of  herself 
not  only  within  the  estate  of  matrimony,  but  in  an 
African  jungle.  She  would  in  either  situation  in 
evitably  get  what  she  wanted,  and  in  order  to  get  it 
she  would  shrink  as  little  from  sacrificing  a  husband 
as  from  enslaving  a  savage. 

And  yet  a  few  hours  later,  when  she  stood  beneath 
her  bridal  veil  and  gazed  at  her  image  in  the  cheval- 
glass  in  her  bedroom,  she  presented  so  enchanting 
a  picture  of  virgin  innocence,  that  Virginia  could 
hardly  believe  that  she  harboured  in  her  breast,  under 
the  sacred  white  satin  of  her  bride's  gown,  the  heret 
ical  opinions  which  she  had  uttered  downstairs  in 
the  pantry.  Her  charming  face  had  attuned  its 
expression  so  perfectly  to  the  dramatic  values  of 
the  moment  that  she  appeared,  in  the  words  of  that 
sentimental  soul,  Miss  Priscilla,  to  be  listening  al 
ready  to  "The  Voice  that  Breathed  o'er  Eden." 

"Doesn't  mother  look  sweet?"  she  asked,  catch 
ing  sight  of  Virginia's  face  in  the  mirror.  "I  love 
her  in  pale  grey  —  only  she  ought  to  have  some 
flowers." 

"  I  told  father  to  order  her  a  bunch  of  violets,"  an 
swered  Jenny.  "I  wonder  if  he  remembered  to  do  it." 

A  look  of  pleasure,  the  first  she  had  worn  for  days, 
flitted  over  Virginia's  face.  She  had  all  her  mother's 
touching  appreciation  of  insignificant  favours,  and, 
perhaps  because  her  pleasure  was  so  excessive,  peo- 


438  VIRGINIA 

pie  shrank  a  little  from  arousing  it.  Like  most 
persons  who  thought  perpetually  of  others,  she  was  not 
accustomed  to  being  thought  of  very  often  in  return. 

But  Oliver  had  remembered,  and  when  the  purple 
box  was  brought  up  to  her,  and  Jenny  pinned  the 
violets  on  her  dress,  a  blush  mantled  her  thin  cheeks, 
and  she  looked  for  a  moment  almost  as  young  and 
lovely  as  her  daughters.  Then  Oliver  came  after 
Lucy,  and  gathering  up  her  train,  the  girl  smiled 
at  her  mother  and  hurried  out  of  the  room.  At  the 
last  minute  her  qualms  appeared  suddenly  to  depart. 
Whatever  happened  in  the  months  and  years  that 
came  afterwards,  she  had  determined  to  get  all  she 
could  out  of  the  excitement  of  the  wedding.  She 
had  cast  no  loving  glance  about  the  little  room,  where 
she  was  leaving  her  girlhood  behind  her;  but  Virginia, 
lingering  for  an  instant  after  the  others  had  gone  out, 
looked  with  tear-dimmed  eyes  at  the  small  white 
bed  and  the  white  furniture  decorated  in  roses.  She 
suffered  in  that  minute  with  an  intensity  and  a  depth 
of  feeling  that  Lucy  had  never  known  in  the  past  — 
that  she  would  never  know  in  the  future  —  for  it 
is  given  to  mothers  to  live  not  once,  but  twice  or 
thrice  or  as  many  times  as  they  have  children  to 
live  for.  And  the  sunlight,  entering  through  the 
high  window,  fell  very  gently  on  the  anxious  love  in 
her  eyes,  on  the  fading  white  rose-leaves  of  her  cheeks, 
and  on  the  silvery  mist  of  curls  framing  her  forehead. 


That  afternoon,  when  Lucy  had  motored  off  with 
her  husband,  and  Oliver  and  Jenny  had  gone  riding 


MIDDLE-AGE  439 

together,  Virginia  went  back  again  into  the  room 
and  put  away  the  scattered  clothes  the  girl  had  left. 
On  the  bed  was  the  little  pillow,  with  the  embroidered 
slip  over  a  cover  of  pink  satin  Virginia  had  made, 
and  taking  it  from  the  bed  she  put  it  into  one 
of  the  boxes  which  had  been  left  open  until  the 
last  minute.  As  she  did  so,  it  was  as  if  a  miraculous 
wand  was  waved  over  her  memory,  softening  Lucy's 
image  until  she  appeared  to  her  in  all  the  angelic 
sweetness  and  charm  of  her  childhood.  Her  egoism, 
her  selfishness,  her  lack  of  consideration  and  of  rever 
ence,  all  those  faults  of  an  excessive  individualism 
embodied  in  the  girl,  vanished  so  completely  that 
she  even  forgot  they  had  ever  existed.  Once  again 
she  felt  in  her  breast  the  burning  rapture  of  young 
motherhood;  once  again  she  gathered  her  first-born 
child  —  hers  alone,  hers  out  of  the  whole  world  of 
children !  —  into  her  arms.  A  choking  sensation  rose 
in  her  throat,  and,  dropping  a  handful  of  photographs 
which  she  had  started  to  put  away,  she  hurried  from 
the  room,  as  though  she  were  leaving  something  dead 
there  that  she  loved. 

Downstairs,  the  caterers  and  the  florists  were  in 
possession,  carting  away  glass  and  china,  dismantling 
decorations,  and  ejecting  palms  as  summarily  as 
though  they  had  come  uninvited.  The  servants 
were  busy  sweeping  floors  and  moving  chairs  and 
sofas  back  into  place,  and  in  the  kitchen  the  negro 
cook  was  placidly  beginning  preparations  for  supper. 
For  a  time  Virginia  occupied  herself  returning  the 
ornaments  to  the  drawing-room  mantelpiece,  and 
the  illustrated  gift  books  to  the  centre  table.  When 
this  was  over  she  looked  about  her  with  the  nervous 


440  VIRGINIA 

expectancy  of  a  person  who  has  been  overwhelmed 
for  months  by  a  multitude  of  exigent  cares,  and 
realized,  with  a  start,  that  there  was  nothing  for 
her  to  do.  To-morrow  Oliver  and  Jenny  were  both 
going  away  — he  to  New  York  to  attend  the  re 
hearsals  of  his  play,  and  she  back  to  finish  her  year  at 
college  —  and  Virginia  would  be  left  in  an  empty 
house  with  all  her  pressing  practical  duties  suddenly 
ended. 

"You  will  have  such  a  nice  long  rest  now, 
mother  dear,"  Lucy  had  said  as  she  clung  to  her  be 
fore  stepping  into  the  car,  and  Virginia  had  agreed 
unthinkingly  that  a  rest  for  a  little  while  would, 
perhaps,  do  her  good.  Now,  turning  away  from 
the  centre  table,  where  she  had  laid  the  last  useless 
volume  in  place,  she  walked  slowly  through  the  li 
brary  to  the  dining-room,  and  then  from  the  dining- 
room  into  the  pantry.  Here,  the  dishes  were  all 
washed,  the  cup-towels  were  drying  in  an  orderly 
row  beside  the  sink,  and  the  two  maids  and  the  butler 
were  "drawing  a  breath"  in  wooden  chairs  by  the 
stove. 

"  There  was  enough  chicken  salad  and  ice  cream 
left  for  supper,  wasn't  there,  Wotan?" 

On  being  assured  that  there  was  enough  for  a  week, 
she  gave  a  few  directions  about  the  distribution  of 
the  other  food  left  from  the  wedding  breakfast,  and 
then  went  out  again  and  into  Oliver's  study.  A  feel 
ing  of  restlessness  more  acute  than  any  she  had  ever 
known  kept  her  walking  back  and  forth  between  the 
door  and  the  window,  which  looked  out  into  a  square 
of  garden,  where  a  few  lonely  sticks  protruded  out 
of  the  discoloured  snow  on  the  grass.  She  had  lived 


MIDDLE-AGE  441 

for  others  so  long  that  she  had  at  last  lost  the  power 
of  living  for  herself. 

There  was  nothing  to  do  to-day;  there  would  be 
nothing  to  do  to-morrow;  and,  unless  Jenny  came  home 
to  be  married,  there  would  be  nothing  to  do  next  year 
or  the  years  after  that.  AYhile  Oliver  was  in  Din- 
widdie,  she  had,  of  course,  the  pleasure  of  supplying 
his  food  and  of  watching  him  eat  it;  but  beyond  that, 
even  when  he  sat  in  the  room  with  her,  there  was  little 
conversation  between  them.  She  herself  loved  to 
talk,  for  she  had  inherited  her  mother's  ability  to 
keep  up  a  honeyed  flow  of  sound  about  little  things: 
but  she  had  learned  long  ago  that  there  were  times 
when  her  voice,  rippling  on  about  nothing,  only 
irritated  him,  and  with  her  feminine  genius  for  adapt 
ability,  she  had  made  a  habit  of  silence.  He  never 
spoke  to  her  of  his  work  except  in  terms  of  flippant 
ridicule  which  pained  her,  and  the  supreme  topic  of 
the  children's  school  reports  had  been  absent  now 
for  many  years.  Companionship  of  a  mental  sort 
had  always  been  lacking  between  them,  yet  so  rev 
erently  did  she  still  accept  the  traditional  fictions  of 
marriage,  that  she  would  have  been  astonished  at  the 
suggestion  that  a  love  which  could  survive  the  shocks 
of  tragedy  might  at  last  fade  away  from  a  gradual 
decline  of  interest.  Nothing  had  happened.  There 
had  been  no  scenes,  no  quarrels,  no  jealousies,  no 
recriminations  —  merely  a  gentle,  yet  deliberate,  with 
drawal  of  personalities.  He  had  worshipped  her  at 
twenty-two,  and  now,  at  forty-seven,  there  were 
moments  when  she  realized  with  a  stab  of  pain  that 
she  bored  him;  but  beyond  this  she  had  felt  no  cause 
for  unhappiness,  and  until  the  last  year  no  cause 


442  VIRGINIA 

even  for  apprehension.  The  libertine  had  always 
been  absent  from  his  nature;  and  during  all  the  years 
of  their  marriage  he  had,  as  Susan  pul  it,  hardly  so 
much  as  looked  at  another  woman.  Whatever  came 
between  them,  it  would  not  be  physical  passion,  but 
a  far  subtler  thing. 

Going  to  his  desk,  she  took  up  a  photograph  of 
Margaret  Oldcastle  and  studied  it  for  a  moment  — 
not  harshly,  not  critically,  but  with  a  pensive  ques 
tioning.  It  was  hardly  a  beautiful  face,  but  in  its 
glowing  intellectuality,  it  was  the  face  of  a  woman 
of  power.  So  different  was  the  look  of  noble  reti 
cence  it  wore  from  that  of  the  conventional  type  of 
American  actress,  that  while  she  gazed  at  it  Virginia 
found  herself  asking  vaguely,  "I  wonder  why  she 
went  on  the  stage?"  The  woman  was  not  a  pretty 
doll  —  she  was  not  a  voluptuous  enchantress  —  the 
coquetry  of  the  one  and  the  flesh  of  the  other  were 
missing.  If  the  stories  Virginia  had  heard  of  her 
were  to  be  trusted,  she  had  come  out  of  poverty  not 
by  the  easy  steps  of  managers'  favours,  but  by  hard 
work,  self-denial,  and  discipline.  Though  Virginia 
had  never  seen  her,  she  felt  instinctively  that  she  was 
an  "honest  woman." 

And  yet  why  did  this  face,  which  had  in  it  none 
of  the  charms  of  the  seductress,  disturb  her  so  pro 
foundly?  She  was  too  little  given  to  introspection, 
too  accustomed  to  think  always  in  concrete  images, 
to  answer  the  question;  but  her  intuition,  rather 
than  her  thought,  made  her  understand  dimly  that 
the  things  she  feared  in  Margaret  Oldcastle  were 
the  qualities  in  which  she  herself  was  lacking.  What 
ever  power  the  woman  possessed  drew  its  strength 


MIDDLE-AGE  443 

and  its  completeness  from  a  source  which  Virginia  had 
never  recognized  as  being  necessary  or  even  beneficent 
to  love.  After  all,  was  it  not  petty  and  unjust  in 
her  to  be  hurt  by  Oliver's  friendship  for  a  woman  who 
had  been  of  such  tremendous  assistance  to  him  in  his 
work?  Had  he  not  said  a  hundred  times  that  she 
had  succeeded  in  making  his  plays  popular  without 
making  them  at  the  same  time  ridiculous? 

Putting  the  photograph  back  in  its  place  on  the 
desk,  she  turned  away  and  began  walking  again  over 
the  strip  of  carpet  which  led  from  the  door  to  the 
window.  In  the  yard  the  dried  stalks  of  last  year's 
flowers  looked  so  lonely  in  the  midst  of  the  dirty 
snow,  that  she  felt  a  sudden  impulse  of  sympathy. 
Poor  things,  they  had  outlived  their  usefulness.  The 
phrase  occurred  to  her  again,  and  she  remembered 
how  often  her  father  had  applied  it  to  women  whose 
children  had  all  married  and  left  them. 

"Poor  Matilda!  She  is  restless  and  dissatisfied, 
and  she  doesn't  understand  that  it  is  because  she 
has  outlived  her  usefulness."  At  that  time  "poor 
Matilda"  had  seemed  to  her  an  old  woman  —  but, 
perhaps,  she  wasn't  in  reality  much  over  forty.  How 
soon  women  grew  old  a  generation  ago!  Why,  she 
felt  as  young  to-day  as  she  did  the  morning  on  which 
she  was  married.  She  felt  as  young,  and  yet  her 
hair  was  greying,  her  face  was  wrinkled,  and,  like 
poor  Matilda,  she  had  outlived  her  usefulness.  While 
she  stood  there  that  peculiar  sensation  which  comes 
to  women  when  their  youth  is  over  —  the  sensation 
of  a  changed  world  —  took  possession  of  her.  She 
felt  that  life  was  slipping,  slipping  past  her,  and  that 
she  was  left  behind  like  a  bit  of  the  sentiment  or  the 


444  VIRGINIA 

law  of  the  last  century.  Though  she  still  felt  young, 
it  was  not  with  the  youth  of  to-day.  She  had  no  part 
in  the  present;  her  ideals  were  the  ideals  of  another 
period;  even  her  children  had  outgrown  her.  She 
saw  now  with  a  piercing  flash  of  insight,  so  penetrat 
ing,  so  impersonal,  that  it  seemed  the  result  of  some 
outside  vision  rather  than  of  her  own  uncritical 
judgment,  that  life  had  treated  her  as  it  treats  those 
who  give,  but  never  demand.  She  had  made  the  way 
too  easy  for  others;  she  had  never  exacted  of  them; 
she  had  never  held  them  to  the  austerity  of  their  ideals. 
Then  the  illumination  faded  as  if  it  had  been  the 
malicious  act  of  a  demon,  and  she  reproached  herself 
for  allowing  such  thoughts  to  enter  her  mind  for  an 
instant. 

"I  don't  know  what  can  be  the  matter  with 
me.  I  never  used  to  brood.  I  wonder  if  it  can  be 
my  time  of  life  that  makes  me  so  nervous  and  appre 
hensive?" 

For  so  long  she  had  waited  for  some  definite  point 
of  time,  for  the  children  to  begin  school,  for  them 
to  finish  school,  for  Harry  to  go  off  to  college,  for 
Lucy  to  be  married,  that  now,  when  she  realized  that 
there  was  nothing  to  expect,  nothing  to  prepare  for, 
her  whole  nature,  with  all  the  multitudinous  fibres 
which  had  held  her  being  together,  seemed  suddenly 
to  relax  from  its  tension.  To  be  sure,  Oliver  would 
come  home  for  a  time  at  least  after  his  rehearsals 
were  over,  Jenny  would  return  for  as  much  of  the 
holidays  as  her  philanthropic  duties  permitted,  and, 
if  she  waited  long  enough,  Harry  would  occasionally 
pay  her  a  visit.  They  all  loved  her;  not  one  of  them, 
she  told  herself,  would  intentionally  neglect  her  — 


MIDDLE-AGE  445 

but  not  one  of  them  needed  her!  She  had  outlived 
her  usefulness ! 

The  next  afternoon,  when  Oliver  and  Jenny  had 
driven  off  to  the  station,  she  put  on  her  street  clothes, 
and  went  out  to  call  on  Susan,  who  lived  in  a  new 
house  in  High  Street.  Mrs.  Treadwell,  having  worn 
out  everybody's  patience  except  Susan's,  had  died 
some  five  years  before,  and  the  incorrigible  senti 
mentalists  of  Dinwiddie  —  there  were  many  of  them 
-  expressed  publicly  the  belief  that  Cyrus  had  never 
been  "the  same  man  since  his  wife's  death."  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Cyrus,  who  had  retired  from  active 
finance  in  the  same  year  that  he  lost  Belinda,  had 
missed  his  business  considerably  more  than  he  had 
missed  his  wife,  whose  loss,  if  he  had  ever  analyzed 
it,  would  have  resolved  itself  into  the  absence  of 
somebody  to  bully.  But  on  the  very  day  that  he  had 
retired  from  work  he  had  begun  to  age  rapidly,  and 
now,  standing  on  Susan's  porch,  he  suggested  to 
Virginia  an  orange  from  which  every  drop  of  juice 
had  been  squeezed.  Of  late  he  had  taken  to  giving 
rather  lavishly  to  churches,  with  a  vague,  super 
stitious  hope,  perhaps,  that  he  might  buy  the  sal 
vation  he  had  been  too  busy  to  work  out  in  other 
ways.  And  so  acute  had  become  his  terror  of  death, 
Virginia  had  heard,  that  after  every  attack  of  dys 
pepsia  he  dispatched  a  check  to  the  missionary  society 
of  the  church  he  attended. 

Upstairs,  in  her  bedroom,  Susan,  who  had  just 
come  in,  was  "taking  off  her  things,"  and  she  greeted 
Virginia  with  a  delight  which  seemed,  in  some  strange 
way,  to  be  both  a  balm  and  a  stimulant.  One  thing, 
at  least,  in  her  life  had  not  altered  with  middle-age, 


44(5  VIRGINIA 

and  that  was  Susan's  devotion.  She  was  a  large, 
young,  superbly  vigorous  woman  of  forty-five,  with 
an  abundant  energy  which  overflowed  outside  of  her 
household  in  a  dozen  different  directions.  She  loved 
John  Henry,  but  she  did  not  love  him  to  the  exclusion 
of  other  people;  she  loved  her  children,  but  they  did 
not  absorb  her.  There  was  hardly  a  charity  or  a 
public  movement  in  Dinwiddie  in  which  she  did  not 
take  a  practical  interest.  She  had  kept  her  mind 
as  alert  as  her  body,  and  the  number  of  books  she 
read  had  always  shocked  Virginia  a  little,  who  felt 
that  time  for  reading  was  obliged  to  be  time  subtracted 
from  more  important  duties. 

"I've  thought  of  you  so  much,  Jinny,  darling. 
You  mustn't  let  yourself  begin  to  feel  lonely." 

Virginia  shook  her  head  with  a  smile,  but  in  spite 
of  her  effort  not  to  appear  depressed,  there  was  a 
touching  wistfulness  in  her  eyes. 

"Of  course  I  miss  the  dear  children,  but  I'm  so 
thankful  that  they  are  happy." 

"I  wish  Jenny  would  come  back  home  to  stay 
with  you." 

"She  would  if  I  asked  her,  Susan"  -her  face 
showed  her  pleasure  at  the  thought  of  Jenny's  will 
ingness  for  the  sacrifice  —  "but  I  wouldn't  have  her 
do  it  for  the  world.  She's  so  different  from  Lucy,  who 
was  quite  happy  as  long  as  she  could  have  atten 
tion  and  go  to  parties.  Of  course,  it  seems  to  me 
more  natural  for  a  girl  to  be  like  that,  especially  a 
Southern  girl,  but  Jenny  says  that  she  is  obliged 
to  have  something  to  think  about  besides  men.  I 
wonder  what  my  dear  father  would  have  thought  of 
her?" 


MIDDLE-AGE  447 

"She'll  take  you  by  surprise  some  day,  and  marry 
as  suddenly  as  Lucy  did." 

"That's  what  Oliver  says,  but  Miss  Priscilla  is 
sure  she'll  be  an  old  maid,  because  she's  so  fastidious. 
It's  funny  how  much  more  women  exact  of  men  now 
than  they  used  to.  Don't  you  remember  what  a  hero 
ine  the  women  of  Miss  Priscilla's  generation  thought 
Mrs.  Tom  Peachey  was  because  she  supported  Major 
Peachey  by  taking  boarders  while  he  just  drank 
himself  into  his  grave?  Well,  somebody  mentioned 
that  to  Jenny  the  other  day  and  she  said  it  was  'dis 
gusting." 

"I  always  thought  so,"  said  Susan,  "but,  Jinny, 
I'm  more  interested  in  you  than  I  am  in  Mrs.  Peachey. 
What  are  you  going  to  do  with  yourself?"  Almost 
unconsciously  both  had  eliminated  Oliver  as  the  domi 
nant  figure  in  Virginia's  future. 

"I  don't  know,  dear.  I  wish  my  children  were 
as  young  as  yours.  Bessie  is  just  six,  isn't  she?  " 

"You  ought  to  have  had  a  dozen  children.  Didn't 
you  realize  that  Nature  intended  you  to  do  it?" 

"I  know"  -a  pensive  look  came  into  her  face  — 
"but  we  were  very  poor,  and  after  the  three  came  so 
quickly,  and  the  little  one  that  I  lost,  Oliver  felt  that 
we  could  not  afford  to  have  any  others.  I've  so  often 
thought  that  I  was  never  really  happy  except  when 
I  had  a  baby  in  my  arms." 

"It's  a  devilish  trick  of  Nature's  that  she  makes 
them  stop  coming  at  the  very  time  that  you  want 
them  most.  Forty -five  is  not  much  more  than  half 
a  lifetime,  Jinny." 

"And  when  one  has  lived  in  their  children  as  I 
have  done,  of  course,  one  feels  a  little  bit  lost  without 


448  VIRGINIA 

them.  Then,  if  Oliver  were  not  obliged  to  be  away 
so  much  - 

Her  voice  broke,  and  Susan,  leaning  forward  im 
pulsively,  put  her  arms  about  her. 

"Jinny,  darling,  I  never  saw  you  depressed  before." 

"I  was  never  like  this  until  to-day.  It  must  be 
the  weather  —  or  my  age.  I  suppose  I  shall  get 
over  it." 

"Of  course  you  will  get  over  it  —  but  you  mustn't 
let  it  grow  on  you.  You  mustn't  be  too  much  alone." 

"How  can  I  help  it?  Oliver  will  be  away  almost 
all  winter,  and  when  he  is  at  home,  he  is  so  absorbed 
in  his  work  that  he  sometimes  doesn't  speak  for  days. 
Of  course,  it  isn't  his  fault,"  she  added  hastily;  "it 
is  the  only  way  he  can  write." 

"LAnd  you're  alone  now  for  the  first  time  for  twenty- 
five  years.  That's  why  you  feel  it  so  keenly." 

The  look  of  unselfish  goodness  which  made  Virginia's 
face  almost  beautiful  at  times  passed  like  an  edge 
of  light  across  her  eyes  and  mouth.  "Don't  worry 
about  me,  Susan.  I'll  get  used  to  it." 

"You  will,  dear,  but  it  isn't  right.  I  wish  Harry 
could  have  stayed  in  Dinwiddie.  He  would  have 
been  such  a  comfort  to  you." 

"But  I  wouldn't  have  had  him  do  it!  The  boy 
is  so  brilliant.  He  has  a  future  before  him.  Already 
he  has  had  several  articles  accepted  by  the  magazines" 
-her  face  shone  —  "and  I  hope  that  he  will  some 
day  be  as  successful  as  Oliver  has  been  without  going 
through  the  long  struggle." 

"  Can't  you  go  to  England  to  see  him  in  the  summer?" 

"That's  what  I  want  to  do."  It  was  touching  to 
see  how  her  animation  and  interest  revived  when 


MIDDLE-AGE  449 

she  began  talking  of  Harry.  "And  when  Oliver's 
play  is  put  on  in  February,  he  has  promised  to  take 
me  to  New  York  for  the  first  night." 

"I  am  glad  of  that.  But,  meanwhile,  you  mustn't 
sit  at  home  and  think  too  much,  Jinny.  It  isn't  good 
for  you.  Can't  you  find  an  interest?  If  you  would 
only  take  up  reading  again.  You  used  to  be  fond 

of  it." 

"I  know,  but  one  gets  out  of  the  habit.  I  gave 
it  up  after  the  children  came,  when  there  was  so  much 
that  was  really  important  for  me  to  do,  and  now,  to 
save  my  life,  I  can't  get  interested  in  a  book  except 
for  an  hour  or  two  at  a  time.  I'm  always  stopping 
to  ask  myself  if  I'm  not  neglecting  something,  just 
as  I  used  to  do  while  the  children  were  little.  You 
see,  I'm  not  a  clever  woman  like  you.  I  was  made 
just  to  be  a  wife  and  mother,  and  nothing  else." 

"But  you're  obliged  to  be  something  else  now. 
You  are  only  forty-five.  There  may  be  forty  more 
years  ahead  of  you,  and  you  can't  go  on  being  a  mother 
every  minute  of  your  time.  Even  if  you  have  grand 
children,  they  won't  be  like  your  own.  You  can't 
slave  over  them  in  the  way  you  used  to  do  over  yours. 
The  girls'  husbands  and  Harry's  wife  would  have 
something  to  say  about  it." 

"Do  you  know,  Susan,  I  try  not  to  be  little  and 
jealous,  but  when  you  said  'Harry's  wife'  so  care 
lessly  just  now  it  brought  a  lump  to  my  throat." 

"He  will  marry  some  day,  darling,  and  you  might 
as  well  accustom  yourself  to  the  thought." 

"I  know,  and  I  want  him  to  do  it.  I  shall  love 
his  wife  as  if  she  were  my  daughter  —  but  —  but  it 
seems  to  me  at  this  minute  as  if  I  could  not  bear  it!" 


450  VIRGINIA 

The  grey  twilight,  entering  through  the  high  win 
dow  above  her  head,  enveloped  her  as  tenderly  as 
if  it  were  the  atmosphere  of  those  romantic  early 
eighties  to  which  she  belonged.  The  small  aristo 
cratic  head,  with  its  quaint  old-fashioned  clusters  of 
curls  on  the  temples,  the  delicate  stooping  figure, 
a  little  bent  in  the  chest,  the  whole  pensive,  exquisite 
personality  which  expressed  itself  in  that  manner  of 
gentle  self-effacement  —  these  things  spoke  to  Susan's 
heart,  through  the  softness  of  the  dusk,  with  all  the 
touching  appeal  of  the  past.  It  was  as  if  the  in 
scrutable  enigma  of  time  waited  there,  shrouded  in 
mystery,  for  a  solution  which  would  make  clear  the 
meaning  of  the  blighted  promises  of  life.  She  saw 
.herself  and  Virginia  on  that  May  afternoon  twenty- 
five  years  ago,  standing  with  eager  hearts  on  the  edge 
of  the  future;  she  saw  them  waiting,  with  breathless, 
expectant  lips,  for  the  miracle  that  must  happen! 
Well,  the  miracle  had  happened,  and  like  the  ma 
jority  of  miracles,  it  had  descended  in  the  act  of  occur 
rence  from  the  zone  of  the  miraculous  into  the  region 
of  the  ordinary.  This  was  life,  and  looking  back 
from  middle-age,  she  felt  no  impulse  to  regret  the 
rapturous  certainties  of  youth.  Experience,  though 
it  contained  an  inevitable  pang,  was  better  than 
ignorance.  It  was  good  to  have  been  young;  it 
was  good  to  be  middle-aged;  and  it  would  be  good 
to  be  old.  For  she  was  one  of  those  who  loved  life, 
not  because  it  was  beautiful,  but  because  it  was 
life. 

"I  must  go,"  said  Virginia,  rising  in  the  aimless 
way  of  a  person  who  is  not  moving  toward  a  definite 
object. 


MIDDLE-AGE  451 

"Stay  and  have  supper  with  us,  Jinny.   John  Henry 
will  take  you  home  afterward." 

"I   can't,    dear.     The  — the   servants   are    expect 
ing  me." 

She  kissed  Susan  on  the  cheek,  and  taking  up  her 
little  black  silk  bag,  turned  to  the  door. 

"Jinny,  if  I  come  by  for  you  to-morrow,  will  you 
a0  with  me  to  a  board  meeting  or  two?      Couldn  t 
you  possibly  take  an  interest  in  some  charity?" 
was  a  desperate  move,  but  at  the  moment  she  could 
think  of  no  other  to  make. 

"Oh,  I  am  interested,  Susan  — but  I  have  no 
executive  ability,  you  know.  And  -  and,  then,  poor 
dear  father  used  to  have  such  a  horror  of  women 
who  were  always  running  about  to  meetings.  He 
would  never  even  let  mother  do  church  work-- 
except,  of  course,  when  there  was  a  cake  sale  or  a  fair 
of  the  missionary  society." 

Susan's  last  effort  had  failed,  and  as  she  followed 
Virginia  downstairs  and  to  the  front  door,  a  look  almost 
of  gloom  settled  on  her  large  cheerful  face. 

"Try  to  pay  some  calls  every  afternoon,  wont 
you,  dear?"  she  said  at  the  door.  "I'll  come  in  to 
see  you  in  the  morning  when  we  get  back  from  mar 
keting." 

Then  she  added  softly,  "If  you  are  ever  lonesome 
and  want  me,  telephone  for  me  day  or  night.  ^There  s 
nothing  on  earth  I  wouldn't  do  for  you,  Jinny." 

Virginia's  eyes  were  wonderful  with  love  and  grati 
tude  as  they  shone  on  her  through  the  twilight.  "We've 
been  friends  since  we  were  two  years  old,  Susan,  and, 
do  you  know,  there  is  nobody  in  the  world  that  ] 
would  ask  anything  of  as  soon  as  I  would  of  you." 


452  VIRGINIA 

A  look  of  unutterable  understanding  and  fidelity 
passed  between  them;  then  turning  silently  away, 
Virginia  descended  the  steps  and  walked  quickly  along 
the  path  to  the  pavement,  while  Susan,  after  watch 
ing  her  through  the  gate,  shut  the  door  and  went 
upstairs  to  the  nursery. 

The  town  lay  under  a  thin  crust  of  snow,  which 
was  beginning  to  melt  in  the  chill  rain  that  was  fall 
ing.  Raising  her  umbrella,  Virginia  picked  her  way 
carefully  over  the  icy  streets,  and  Miss  Priscilla,  who 
was  looking  in  search  of  diversion  out  of  her  front 
window,  had  a  sudden  palpitation  of  the  heart  because 
it  seemed  to  her  for  a  minute  that  "Lucy  Pendleton 
had  returned  to  life."  So  one  generation  of  gentle 
shades  after  another  had  moved  in  the  winter's  dusk 
under  the  frosted  lamps  of  High  Street. 

Through  the  windows  of  her  house  a  cheerful  light 
streamed  out  upon  the  piles  of  melting  snow  in  the 
yard,  and  at  the  door  one  of  her  coloured  servants 
met  her  with  the  news  that  a  telegram  was  on  the 
hall  table.  Before  opening  it  she  knew  what  it  was, 
for  Oliver's  correspondence  with  her  had  taken  this 
form  for  more  than  a  year. 

"Arrived  safely.  Very  busy.  Call  on  John  Henry 
if  you  need  anything." 

She  put  it  down  and  turned  hastily  to  letters  from 
Harry  and  Jenny.  The  first  was  only  a  scrawl  in 
pencil,  written  with  that  boyish  reticence  which 
always  overcame  Harry  when  he  wrote  to  one  of  his 
family;  but  beneath  the  stilted  phrases  she  could 
read  his  homesickness  and  his  longing  for  her  in 
every  line. 

"Poor  boy,  I  am  afraid  he  is  lonely,"  she  thought, 


MIDDLE-AGE  453 

and  caressed  the  paper  as  tenderly  as  if  it  had  been 
the  letter  of  a  lover.  He  had  written  to  her  every 
Sunday  since  he  had  first  gone  off  to  college  and 
several  times  she  knew  that  he  had  denied  himself 
a  pleasure  in  order  to  send  her  her  weekly  letter. 
Already,  she  had  begun  to  trust  to  his  "sense  of  re 
sponsibility"  as  she  had  never,  even  in  the  early  days 
of  her  marriage,  trusted  to  Oliver's. 

Opening    the    large     square    envelope     which    was 
addressed    in    Jenny's    impressive    handwriting,    she 
found  four  closely   written   pages   entertainingly  de 
scriptive  of  the  girl's  journey  back  to  college  and  of 
the   urgent   interests   she  found   awaiting  her  there. 
In  this  letter  there  was  none  of  the  weakness  of  im 
plied    sentiment,    there    was    none    of    the    plaintive 
homesickness  she  had  read  in  Harry's.     Jenny  wrote 
regularly  and  affectionately  because  she  felt  that  it 
was  her  duty  to  do  so,  for,  unlike  Lucy,  who  was  heard 
from  only  when  she  wanted  something,  she  was  a  girl 
who  obeyed  sedulously  the  promptings  of  her  con 
science.     But  if  she  loved  her  mother,  she  was  plainly 
not  interested  in  her.     Her  attitude  towards  life  was 
masculine  rather  than  feminine;  and  Virginia  had  long 
since  learned  that  in  the  case  of  a  man  it  is  easier 
to  inspire  love  than  it  is  to  hold  his  attention.     Harry 
was  different,  of  course  —  there  was  a  feminine,  or 
at  least  a  poetic,  streak  in  him  which  endowed  him 
with  that  natural  talent  for  the  affections  which  is 
supposed    to    be    womanly  —  but    Jenny    resembled 
Oliver  in  her  preference  for  the  active  rather  than  for 
the  passive  side  of  experience. 

Going  upstairs,  Virginia  took  off  her  hat  and  coat, 
and,  without  changing  her  dress,   came  down   again 


454  VIRGINIA 

with  a  piece  of  fancy-work  in  her  hands.  Placing 
herself  under  the  lamp  in  Oliver's  study,  she  took 
a  few  careful  stitches  in  the  centrepiece  she  was  em 
broidering  for  Lucy,  and  then  letting  her  needle  fall, 
sat  gazing  into  the  wood-fire  which  crackled  softly 
on  the  brass  andirons.  From  the  lamp  on  the  desk 
an  amber  glow  fell  on  the  dull  red  of  the  leather- 
covered  furniture,  on  the  pale  brown  of  the  walls, 
on  the  rich  blending  of  oriental  colours  in  the  rug 
at  her  feet.  It  was  the  most  comfortable  room  in 
the  house,  and  for  that  reason  she  had  fallen  into 
the  habit  of  using  it  when  Oliver  was  away.  Then, 
too,  his  personality  had  impressed  itself  so  ineffaceably 
upon  the  surroundings  which  he  had  chosen  and  amid 
which  he  had  worked,  that  she  felt  nearer  to  him 
while  she  sat  in  his  favourite  chair,  breathing  the  scent 
of  the  wood-fire  he  loved. 

She  thought  of  the  "dear  children,"  of  how  pleased 
she  was  that  they  were  all  well  and  happy,  of  how 
" sweet"  Harry  and  Jenny  were  about  writing  to 
her;  and  so  unaccustomed  was  she  to  thinking  in  the 
first  person,  that  not  until  she  took  up  her  embroidery 
again  and  applied  her  needle  to  the  centre  of  a  flower, 
did  she  find  herself  saying  aloud:  "I  must  send  for 
Miss  Willy  to-morrow  and  engage  her  for  next  week. 
That  will  be  something  to  do." 

And  looking  ahead  she  saw  days  of  endless  stitching 
and  basting,  of  endless  gossip  accompanied  by  the 
cheerful  whirring  of  the  little  dressmaker's  machine. 
"I  used  to  pity  Miss  Willy  because  she  was  obliged 
to  work,"  she  thought  with  surprise,  "but  now  I  al 
most  envy  her.  I  wonder  if  it  is  work  that  keeps  her 
so  young  and  brisk?  She's  never  had  anything  in 


MIDDLE-AGE  455 

her  life,  and  yet  she  is  so  much  happier  than  some 
people  who  have  had  everything." 

The  maid  came  to  announce  supper,  and,  gathering; 
up  her  fancy-work,  Virginia  laid  it  beside  the  lamp 
on  the  end  of  Oliver's  writing  table.  As  she  did  so, 
she  saw  that  her  photograph,  taken  the  year  of  her 
marriage,  which  he  usually  carried  on  his  journeys, 
had  been  laid  aside  and  overlooked  when  he  was 
packing  his  papers.  It  was  the  first  time  he  had 
forgotten  it,  and  a  little  chill  struck  her  heart  as  she 
put  it  back  in  its  place  beside  the  bronze  letter 
rack.  Then  the  chill  sharpened  suddenly  until  it 
became  an  icy  blade  in  her  breast,  for  she  saw  that 
the  picture  of  Margaret  Oldcastle  was  gone  from  its 
frame. 


CHAPTER  IV 

LIFE'S  CRUELTIES 

THERE  was  a  hard  snowstorm  on  the  day  Oliver 
returned  to  Dinwiddie,  and  Virginia,  who  had  watched 
from  the  window  all  the  afternoon,  saw  him  crossing 
the  street  through  a  whirl  of  feathery  flakes.     The  wind 
drove  violently  against  him,  but  he  appeared  almost 
unconscious  of  it,  so  buoyant,  so  full  of  physical  energy 
was  his  walk.     Never  had  he  looked  more  desirable  to 
her,  never  more  lovable,  than  he  did  at  that  instant. 
Something,  either  a  trick  of  imagination  or  an  illusion 
produced  by  the  flying  whiteness  of  the  storm,  gave 
him  back  for  a  moment  the  glowing  eyes  and  the  eager 
lips  of  his  youth.     Then,  as  she  turned  towards  the 
door,  awaiting  his  step  on  the  stairs,  the  mirror  over 
the  mantel  showed  her  her  own  face,  with  its  fallen 
lines,  its  soft  pallor,  its    look  of    fading  sweetness. 
She  had  laid  her  youth  down  on  the  altar  of  her  love, 
while  he  had  used  love,  as  he  had  used  life,  merely  to 
feed  the  flame  of  the  unconquerable  egoism   which 
burned  like  genius  within  him. 

He  came  in,  brushing  a  few  flakes  of  snow  from  his 
sleeve,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  casual  kindness  of 
his  kiss  fell  like  ice  on  her  cheek  as  he  greeted  her. 
It  was  almost  three  months  since  he  had  seen  her,  for  he 
had  been  unable  to  come  home  for  Christmas,  but  from 
his  manner  he  might  have  parted  from  her  only  yester- 

456 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  457 

day.     He  was  kind  —  he  had  never  been  kinder  — 
but  she  would  have  preferred  that  he  should  strike  her. 

"Are  you  all  right?"  he  asked  gently,  turning  to 
warm  his  hands  at  the  fire.  "Beastly  cold,  isn't  it?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  am  all  right,  dear.  The  play  is  a  great 
success,  isn't  it?" 

His  face  clouded-  "As  such  things  go.  It's  awful 
rot,  but  it's  made  a  hit  —  there's  no  doubt  of  that." 

"And  the  other  one,  'The  Home*  —  when  is  the  first 
night  of  that?" 

"  Next  week.    On  Thursday.    I  must  get  back  for  it." 

"And  I  am  to  go  with  you,  am  I  not?  I  have  looked 
forward  to  it  all  winter." 

At  the  sound  of  her  anxious  question,  a  contraction 
of  pain,  the  look  of  one  who  has  been  touched  on  the 
raw,  crossed  his  face.  Though  she  was  not  penetrating 
enough  to  discern  it,  there  were  times  when  his  pity  for 
her  amounted  almost  to  a  passion,  and  at  such  mo 
ments  he  was  conscious  of  a  blind  anger  against  Life,  as 
against  some  implacable  personal  force,  because  it  had 
robbed  him  of  the  hard  and  narrow  morality  on  which 
his  ancestors  leaned.  The  scourge  of  a  creed  which  hr,d 
kept  even  Cyrus  walking  humbly  in  the  straight  and 
flinty  road  of  Calvinism,  appeared  to  him  in  such  rare 
instants  as  one  of  the  spiritual  luxuries  which  a  ration 
alistic  age  had  destroyed;  for  it  is  not  granted  to  man  to 
look  into  the  heart  of  another,  and  so  he  was  ignorant 
alike  of  the  sanctities  and  the  passions  of  Cyrus's  soul. 
What  he  felt  was  merely  that  the  breaking  of  the  iron 
bonds  of  the  old  faith  had  weakened  his  powers  of  resist 
ance  as  inevitably  as  it  had  liberated  his  thought. 
The  sound  of  his  own  rebellion  was  in  his  ears,  and  filled 
with  the  noise  of  it,  he  had  not  stopped  to  reflect  that 


458  VIRGINIA 

the  rebellion  of  his  ancestors  had  seemed  less  loud  only 
because  it  was  inarticulate.  Was  it  really  that  his 
generation  had  lost  the  capacity  for  endurance,  the 
spiritual  grace  of  self-denial,  or  was  it  simply  that  it 
had  lost  its  reticence  and  its  secrecy  with  the  passing 
of  its  inflexible  dogmas? 

"Why,  certainly  you  must  go  if  you  would  care  to," 
he  answered. 

"Perhaps  Jenny  will  come  over  from  Bryn  Mawr  to 
join  us.  The  dear  child  was  so  disappointed  that  she 
couldn't  come  home  for  Christmas." 

"If  I'd  known  in  time  that  she  wasn't  coming,  I'd 
have  found  a  way  of  getting  down  just  for  dinner  with 
you.  I  hope  you  weren't  alone,  Virginia." 

"Oh,  no,  Miss  Priscilla  came  to  spend  the  day  with 
me.  You  know  she  used  to  take  dinner  with  us  every 
Christmas  at  the  rectory." 

A  troubled  look  clouded  his  face.  "Jenny  ought  to 
have  been  here,"  he  said,  and  asked  suddenly,  as  if  it 
were  a  relief  to  him  to  change  the  subject:  "Have  you 
had  news  of  Harry?" 

The  light  which  the  name  of  Harry  always  brought 
to  her  eyes  shone  there  now,  enriching  their  faded 
beauty.  "He  writes  to  me  every  week.  You  know 
he  hasn't  missed  a  single  Sunday  letter  since  he  first 
went  off  to  school.  He  is  wild  about  Oxford,  but  I 
think  he  gets  a  little  homesick  sometimes,  though  of 
course  he'd  never  say  so." 

"He'll  do  well,  that  boy.    The  stuff  is  in  him." 

"I'm  sure  he's  a  genius  if  there  ever  was  one,  Oliver. 
Only  yesterday  Professor  Trimble  was  telling  me  that 
Harry  was  far  and  awav  the  most  brilliant  pupil  he 
had  ever  had." 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  459 

"Well,  he's  something  to  be  proud  of.  And  now 
what  about  Lucy?  Is  she  still  satisfied  with  Craven?  " 

"She  never  writes  about  anything  else  except  about 
her  house.  Her  marriage  seems  to  have  turned  out 
beautifully.  You  remember  I  wrote  you  that  she 
was  perfectly  delighted  with  her  stepchildren, 
and  she  really  appears  to  be  as  happy  as  the  day  is 
long." 

"You  never  can  tell.  I  thought  she'd  be  back  again 
before  two  months  were  up." 

"  I   know.     We   all   prophesied    dreadful    things  - 
even  Susan." 

"That  reminds  me  —  I  came  down  on  the  train  with 
John  Henry,  and  he  said  that  Uncle  Cyrus  was  break 
ing  rapidly." 

"He  has  never  been  the  same  since  his  wife's  death," 
replied  Virginia,  who  was  a  victim  of  this  sentimental 
fallacy.  "It's  strange  —  isn't  it?  —  because  we  used 
to  think  they  got  on  so  badly." 

"I  wonder  if  it  is  really  that?  Well,  is  there  any 
other  news?  Has  anything  else  happened?" 

With  his  back  to  the  fire,  he  stood  looking  down  on 
her  with  kindly,  questioning  eyes.  He  had  done  his 
best;  from  the  moment  when  he  had  entered  the  room 
and  met  the  touching  brightness  in  her  face,  he  had 
struggled  to  be  as  natural,  to  be  as  affectionate  even, 
as  she  desired.  At  the  moment,  so  softened,  so  self- 
reproachful  was  his  mood,  he  would  willingly  have 
cut  off  his  arm  for  her  could  the  sacrifice  in  any  manner 
have  secured  her  happiness.  But  there  were  times 
when  it  seemed  easier  to  give  his  life  for  her  than  to 
live  it  with  her;  when  to  shed  his  blood  would  have 
cost  less  than  to  make  conversation.  He  yearned  over 


460  VIRGINIA 

Virginia,  but  he  could  not  talk  to  her.  Some  impreg 
nable  barrier  of  personality  separated  them  as  if  it 
were  a  wall.  Already  they  belonged  to  different  gen 
erations;  they  spoke  in  the  language  of  different  periods. 
At  forty-seven,  that  second  youth,  the  Indian  summer 
of  the  emotions,  which  lingers  like  autumnal  sunshine  in 
the  lives  of  most  men  and  of  a  few  women,  was  again 
enkindling  his  heart.  And  with  this  return  of  youth, 
he  felt  the  awakening  of  infinite  possibilities  of  feeling, 
of  the  ancient  ineradicable  belief  that  happiness  lies 
in  possession.  Love,  which  had  used  up  her  spirit  and 
body  in  its  service,  had  left  him  untouched  by  its  exac 
tions.  While  she,  having  fulfilled  her  nature,  was  con 
tent  to  live  anew  not  in  herself,  but  in  her  children,  the 
force  of  personal  desire  was  sweeping  over  him  again, 
with  all  the  flame  and  splendour  of  adolescence,  The 
"something  missing"  waited  there,  just  a  little  beyond, 
as  he  had  seen  it  waiting  in  that  enchanted  May  when 
he  fell  in  love  with  Virginia.  And  between  him  and 
his  vision  of  happiness  there  interposed  merely  his 
undisciplined  conscience,  his  variable,  though  honest, 
desire  to  do  the  thing  that  was  right.  Duty,  which  had 
controlled  Virginia's  every  step,  was  as  remote  and  aloof 
from  his  life  as  was  the  creed  of  his  fathers.  Like  his 
age,  he  was  adrift  among  disestablished  beliefs,  among 
floating  wrecks  of  what  had  once  been  rules  of  con 
duct  by  which  men  had  lived.  And  the  widening 
responsibilities,  the  deepening  consciousness  of  a  force 
for  good  greater  than  creed  or  rules,  all  the  awakening 
moral  strength  which  would  lend  balance  and  power  to 
his  age,  these  things  had  been  weakened  in  his  charac 
ter  by  the  indomitable  egoism  which  had  ordered  his 
life.  There  was  nothing  for  him  to  fall  back  upon, 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  461 

nothing  that  he  could  place  above  the  restless  surge 
of  his  will. 

Sitting  there  in  the  firelight,  with  her  loving  eyes 
following  his  movements,  she  told  him,  bit  by  bit,  all 
the  latest  gossip  of  Dinwiddie.  Susan's  eldest  girl  had 
developed  a  beautiful  voice  and  was  beginning  to  take 
lessons;  poor  Miss  Priscilla  had  had  a  bad  fall  in  Old 
Street  while  she  was  on  the  way  to  market,  and  at  first 
they  feared  she  had  broken  her  hip,  but  it  turned  out 
that  she  was  only  dreadfully  bruised;  Major  Peachey 
had  died  very  suddenly  and  she  had  felt  obliged  to  go 
to  his  funeral;  Abby  Goode  had  been  home  on  a  visit 
and  everybody  said  she  didn't  look  a  day  over  twenty- 
five,  though  she  was  every  bit  of  forty-four.  Then, 
taking  a  little  pile  of  samples  from  her  work  basket 
which  stood  on  the  table,  she  showed  him  a  piece  of 
black  brocaded  satin.  "Miss  Willy  is  making  me  a 
dress  out  of  this  to  wear  in  New  York  with  you.  I 
don't  suppose  you  noticed  whether  or  not  they  were 
wearing  brocade." 

No,  he  hadn't  noticed,  but  the  sample  was  very 
pretty,  he  thought.  "Why  don't  you  buy  a  dress 
there,  Virginia?  It  would  save  you  so  much  trouble." 

"Poor  little  Miss  Willy  has  set  her  heart  on  making 
it,  Oliver.  And,  besides,  I  ^shan't  have  time  if  we  go 
only  the  day  before." 

A  flush  had  come  to  her  face;  at  the  corners  of  her 
mouth  a  tender  little  smile  rippled;  and  her  look  of 
faded  sweetness  gave  place  for  an  instant  to  the 
warmth  and  the  animation  of  girlhood.  But  the 
excitement  of  girlhood  could  not  restore  to  her  the 
freshness  of  youth.  Her  pleasure  was  the  pleasure 
of  middle-age;  the  wistful  expectancy  in  her  face  was 


462  VIRGINIA 

the  expectancy  of  one  whose  interests  are  centred  on 
little  things.  That  inviolable  quality  of  self-sacrifice, 
the  quality  which  knit  her  soul  to  the  enduring  soul 
of  her  race,  had  enabled  her  to  find  happiness  in  the 
simple  act  of  renouncement.  The  quiet  years  had 
kept  undiminished  the  inordinate  capacity  for  enjoy 
ment,  the  exaggerated  appreciation  of  trivial  favours, 
which  had  filled  Mrs.  Pendleton's  life  with  a  flutter 
of  thankfulness;  and  while  Viriginia  smoothed  the 
piece  of  black  brocade  on  her  knee,  she  might  have 
been  the  re- arisen  pensive  spirit  of  her  mother.  Of 
the  two,  perhaps  because  she  had  ceased  to  wish  for 
anything  for  herself,  she  was  happier  than  Oliver. 

All  through  dinner,  while  her  soft  anxious  eyes  dwelt 
on  him  over  the  bowl  of  pink  roses  in  the  centre  of  the 
table,  he  tried  hard  to  throw  himself  into  her  narrow 
life,  to  talk  only  of  things  in  which  he  felt  that  she  was 
interested.  Slight  as  the  effort  was,  he  could  see  her 
gratitude  in  her  face,  could  hear  it  in  the  gentle  silvery 
sound  of  her  voice.  When  he  praised  the  dinner,  she 
blushed  like  a  girl;  when  he  made  her  describe  the  dress 
which  Miss  Willy  was  making,  she  grew  as  excited  as 
if  she  had  been  speaking  of  the  sacred  white  satin  she 
had  worn  as  a  bride.  So  little  was  needed  to  make  her 
happy  —  that  was  the  pathos!  She  was  satisfied  with 
the  crumbs  of  life,  and  yet  they  were  denied  her. 
Though  she  had  been  alone  ever  since  Lucy's  wedding, 
she  accepted  his  belated  visit  as  thankfully  as  if  it 
were  a  gratuitous  gift.  "It  is  so  good  of  you  to  come 
down,  dear,  when  you  are  needed  every  minute  in  New 
York,"  she  murmured,  with  a  caressing  touch  on  his 
arm,  and,  looking  at  her,  he  was  reminded  of  Mrs. 
Pendleton's  tremulous  pleasure  in  the  sweets  that 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  463 

came  to  her  on  little  trays  from  her  neighbours.  Once 
she  had  said  eagerly,  "It  will  be  so  nice  to  see  Miss  Old- 
castle,  Oliver,"  and  he  had  answered  in  a  constrained 
tone  which  he  tried  to  make  light  and  casual,  "I  am  not 
sure  that  the  part  is  going  to  suit  her." 

Then  he  had  changed  the  subject  abruptly  by  rising 
from  the  table  and  asking  her  to  let  him  see  her  latest 
letter  from  Harry. 

The  next  morning  he  went  out  after  breakfast  to  con 
sult  Cyrus  about  some  investments,  while  Virginia 
laid  out  the  lengths  of  brocade  on  the  bed  in  the  spare 
room,  and  sat  down  to  wait  for  the  arrival  of  the  dress 
maker.  Outside,  the  trees  were  still  white  from  the 
storm,  and  the  wind,  blowing  through  them,  made  a 
dry  crackling  sound  as  if  it  were  rattling  thorns  in  a 
forest.  Though  it  was  intensely  cold,  the  sunshine 
fell  in  golden  bars  over  the  pavement  and  filled  the 
town  with  a  dazzling  brilliancy  through  which  the 
little  seamstress  was  seen  presently  making  her  way. 
Alert,  bird-like,  consumed  with  her  insatiable  interest 
in  other  people,  she  entered,  after  she  had  removed  her 
bonnet  and  wraps,  and  began  to  spread  out  her  pat 
terns.  It  was  twenty-odd  years  since  she  had  made 
the  white  satin  dress  in  which  Virginia  was  married, 
yet  she  looked  hardly  a  day  older  than  she  had  done 
when  she  knelt  at  the  girl's  feet  and  envied  her  happi 
ness  while  she  pinned  up  the  shining  train.  Failing 
love,  she  had  filled  her  life  with  an  inextinguishable 
curiosity;  and  this  passion,  being  independent  of  the 
desires  of  others,  was  proof  alike  against  disillusion 
ment  and  the  destructive  processes  of  time. 

"So  Mr.  Treadwell  has  come  home,"  she  remarked, 
with  a  tentative  flourish  of  the  scissors.  "I  declare 


464  VIRGINIA 

he  gets  handsomer  every  day  that  he  lives.  It  suits  him 
somehow  to  fill  out,  or  it  may  be  that  I'm  partial  to 
fat  like  my  poor  mother  before  me." 

"He  does  look  well,  but  I'd  hardly  call  him  fat, 
would  you?" 

"Well,  he's  stouter  than  he  used  to  be,  anyway. 
Did  he  say  when  he  was  going  to  take  you  back  with 
him?" 

"Next  Wednesday.  We'll  have  to  hurry  to  get  this 
dress  ready  in  time." 

"I'll  start  right  in  at  it.  Have  you  made  up  your 
mind  whether  you'll  have  it  princess  or  a  separate 
waist  and  skirt?" 

"I'm  a  little  too  thin  for  a  princess  gown,  don't  you 
think?  Hadn't  I  better  have  it  made  like  that  black 
poplin  which  everybody  thought  looked  so  well  on  me?  " 

"But  it  ain't  half  so  stylish  as  the  princess.  You 
just  let  me  put  a  few  cambric  ruffles  inside  the  bust  and 
you'll  stand  out  a  plenty.  I  was  reading  in  a  fashion 
sheet  only  yesterday  that  they  are  trying  to  look  as 
flat  as  they  can  manage  in  Paris." 

"Well,  I'll  try  it,"  murmured  Virginia  uncertainly, 
for  her  standards  of  dress  were  so  vague  that  she  was 
thankful  to  be  able  to  rely  on  Miss  Willy's  self-consti 
tuted  authority. 

"You  just  leave  it  to  me,"  was  the  dressmaker's 
reply,  while  she  thrust  the  point  of  the  scissors  into  the 
gleaming  brocade  on  the  bed. 

The  morning  passed  so  quickly  amid  cutting,  basting, 
and  gossip,  that  it  came  as  a  surprise  to  Virginia  when 
she  heard  the  front  door  open  and  shut  and  Oliver's 
rapid  step  mounting  the  stairs.  Meeting  him  in  the 
hall,  she  led  the  way  into  her  bedroom,  and  asked  with 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  465 

the  caressing,  slightly  conciliatory  manner  which  ex 
pressed  so  perfectly  her  attitude  toward  life: 

"Did  you  see  Uncle  Cyrus?" 

"Yes,  and  he  was  nicer  than  I  have  ever  known  him 
to  be.  By  the  way,  Virginia,  I've  transferred  enough 
property  to  you  to  bring  you  in  a  separate  income. 
This  was  really  what  I  went  down  about." 

"But  what  is  the  matter,  dear?  Don't  you  feel 
well?  Have  you  had  any  worries  that  you  haven't 
told  me?" 

"Oh,  I'm  all  right,  but  it's  better  so  in  case  some 
thing  should  happen." 

"But  what  could  possibly  happen?  I  never  saw 
you  look  better.  Miss  Willy  was  just  saying  so." 

He  turned  away,  not  impatiently,  but  as  one  who  is 
seeking  to  hide  an  emotion  which  has  become  too 
strong.  Then  without  replying  to  her  question,  he 
muttered  something  about  "a  number  of  letters  to 
write  before  dinner,"  and  hurried  out  of  the  room  and 
downstairs  to  his  study. 

"I  wonder  if  he  has  lost  money,"  she  thought, 
vaguely  troubled,  as  she  instinctively  straightened  the 
brushes  he  had  disarranged  on  the  bureau.  "Poor 
Oliver!  He  seems  to  think  about  nothing  but  money 
now,  and  he  used  to  be  so  romantic." 

He  used  to  be  so  romantic!  She  repeated  this  to 
Susan  that  evening  when,  after  Miss  Willy's  departure 
for  the  night,  she  took  her  friend  into  the  spare  room 
to  show  her  the  first  shapings  of  the  princess  gown. 

"Do  you  remember  that  we  used  to  call  him  an  incur 
able  Don  Quixote?"  she  asked.  "And  now  he  has 
become  so  different  that  at  times  it  makes  me  smile  to 
think  of  him  as  he  was  when  I  first  knew  him.  I  sup- 


466  VIRGINIA 

pose  it's  better  so,  it's  more  normal.  He  used  to  be 
what  Uncle  Cyrus  called  'flighty,'  bent  on  reforming  the 
world  and  on  improving  people,  you  know,  and  now  he 
doesn't  seem  to  care  whether  outside  things  are  good  or 
bad,  just  as  long  as  his  plays  go  well  and  he  can  give 
us  all  the  money  we  want." 

"It's  natural,  isn't  it?"  asked  Susan.  "One  can't 
stay  young  forever,  you  see." 

"And  yet  in  some  ways  he  doesn't  appear  to  be  a  bit 
older.  I  like  his  hair  being  grey,  don't  you?  It 
makes  his  colour  look  even  richer  than  before." 

"Yes,"  said  Susan,  "I  like  his  hair  and  I  like  him. 
Only  I  wish  he  didn't  have  to  leave  you  by  yourself 
so  much  of  the  time." 

"He  is  going  to  take  me  back  with  him  on  Wednes 
day.  Miss  Willy  is  making  this  dress  for  me  to  wear. 
I  want  to  look  nice  because,  of  course,  everybody  will 
be  noticing  Oliver." 

"It's  lovely,  and  I'm  sure  you'll  look  as  sweet  as  the 
angel  that  you  are,  Jinny,"  answered  Susan,  stooping  to 
kiss  her. 

By  Tuesday  night  the  dress  was  finished,  and  Virginia 
was  stuffing  the  sleeves  with  tissue  paper  before  pack 
ing  it  into  her  trunk,  when  Oliver  came  into  the  room 
and  stood  watching  her  in  silence. 

"I  do  hope  it  won't  get  crumpled,"  she  said  anxiously 
as  she  spread  a  towel  over  the  tray.  "Miss  Willy  is 
so  proud  of  it,  and  I  don't  believe  I  could  have  got 
anything  prettier  in  New  York." 

"Virginia,"  he  said  suddenly,  "you've  set  your  heart 
on  going  to-morrow,  haven't  you?" 

Turning  from  the  trunk,  she  looked  up  at  him  with  a 
tender,  inquiring  smile.  Above  her  head  the  electric 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  467 

light,  with  which  Oliver  and  the  girls  had  insisted  on 
replacing  the  gas-jets  that  she  preferred,  cast  a  hard 
glittter  over  the  hollowed  lines  of  her  face  and  over  the 
thinning  curls  which  she  had  striven  to  brush  back 
from  her  temples.  Her  figure,  unassisted  as  yet  by 
Miss  Willy's  ruffles,  looked  so  fragile  in  the  pitiless 
glare  that  his  heart  melted  in  one  of  those  waves  of 
sentimentality  which,  because  they  were  impotent  to 
affect  his  conduct,  cost  him  so  little.  As  she  stood 
there,  he  realized  more  acutely  than  he  had  ever  done 
before  how  utterly  stationary  she  had  remained  since 
he  married  her.  With  her  sweetness,  her  humility, 
her  old-fashioned  courtesy  and  consideration  for  others, 
she  belonged  still  in  the  honey-scented  twilight  of  the 
eighties.  While  he  had  moved  with  the  world,  she, 
who  was  confirmed  in  the  traditions  of  another  age, 
had  never  altered  in  spirit  since  that  ecstatic  moment 
when  he  had  first  loved  her.  The  charm,  the  grace, 
the  virtues,  even  the  look  of  gentle  goodness  which 
had  won  his  heart,  were  all  there  just  as  they  had  been 
when  she  was  twenty.  Except  for  the  fading  flesh, 
the  woman  had  not  changed;  only  the  needs  and  the 
desires  of  the  man  were  different.  Only  the  resurgent 
youth  in  him  was  again  demanding  youth  for  its 
mate. 

"Why,  my  trunk  is  all  packed,"  she  replied.  "Has 
anything  happened?" 

"Oh,  no,  I  was  only  wondering  how  you  would  man 
age  to  amuse  yourself.  You  know  I  shall  be  at  the 
theatre  most  of  the  time." 

"But  you  mustn't  have  me  on  your  mind  a  minute, 
Oliver.  I  won't  go  a  step  unless  you  promise  me  not 
to  worry  about  me  a  bit.  It's  all  so  new  to  me  that  I 


468  VIRGINIA 

shall  enjoy  just  sitting  in  the  hotel  and  watching  the 
people." 

"Then  we'd  better  go  to  the  Waldorf.  That  might 
interest  you  more." 

His  eagerness  to  provide  entertainment  for  her 
touched  her  as  deeply  as  if  it  had  been  a  proof  of  his 
love  instead  of  his  anxiety,  and  she  determined  in  her 
heart  that  if  she  were  lonesome  a  minute  he  must  never 
suspect  it.  Ennui,  having  its  roots  in  an  egoism  she 
did  not  possess,  was  unknown  to  her. 

"That  will  be  lovely,  dear.  Lucy  wrote  me  when 
she  was  there  on  her  wedding  trip  that  she  used  to  sit 
for  hours  in  the  corridor  looking  at  the  people  that 
went  by,  and  that  it  was  as  good  as  a  play." 

"That  settles  it.  I'll  telegraph  for  rooms,"  he  said 
cheerfully,  relieved  to  find  that  she  fell  in  so  readily 
with  his  suggestion. 

She  was  giving  a  last  caressing  pat  to  the  tray  before 
closing  the  trunk,  and  the  look  of  her  thin  hands,  with 
their  slightly  swollen  knuckles,  caused  him  to  lean  for 
ward  suddenly  and  wrest  the  keys  away  from  her. 

"Let  me  do  that.  I  hate  to  see  you  stooping,"  he 
said. 

The  telegram  was  sent,  and  late  the  next  evening, 
as  they  rolled  through  the  brilliant  streets  towards  the 
hotel,  Virginia's  interest  was  as  effervescent  as  if  she 
were  indeed  the  girl  that  she  almost  felt  herself  to  have 
become.  The  sound  of  the  streets  excited  her  like 
martial  music,  and  little  gasps  of  surprise  and  pleasure 
broke  from  her  lips  as  the  taxicab  turned  into  Broad 
way.  It  was  all  so  different  from  her  other  visit 
when  she  had  come  alone  to  find  Oliver,  sick  with 
failure,  in  the  dismal  bedroom  of  that  hotel.  Now  it 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  469 

seemed  to  her  that  the  city  had  grown  younger,  that 
it  was  more  awake,  that  it  was  brighter,  gayer,  and  that 
she  herself  had  a  part  in  its  brightness  and  its  gaiety. 
The  crowds  on  Broadway  seemed  keeping  step  to  some 
happy  tune,  and  she  felt  that  her  heart  was  dancing 
with  them,  so  elated,  so  girlishly  irresponsible  was  her 
mood. 

"Why,  Oliver,  there  is  a  sign  of  your  play  with  a 
picture  of  Miss  Oldcastle  on  it!"  she  exclaimed  de 
lightedly,  pointing  to  an  [  advertisement  before  a 
theatre  they  were  passing.  Then,  suddenly,  it  ap 
peared  to  her  that  the  whole  city  was  waving  this 
advertisement.  Wherever  she  turned  "The  Home" 
stared  back  at  her,  an  orgy  of  red  and  blue  surround 
ing  the  smiling  effigy  of  the  actress.  And  this  proof 
of  Oliver's  fame  thrilled  her  as  she  had  not  been 
thrilled  since  the  telegram  had  come  announcing  that 
Harry  had  won  the  scholarship  which  would  take  him 
to  Oxford.  The  woman's  power  of  sinking  her  am 
bition  and  even  her  identity  into  the  activities  of  the 
man  was  deeply  interwoven  with  all  that  was  essential 
and  permanent  in  her  soul.  Her  keenest  joys,  as  well 
as  her  sharpest  sorrows,  had  never  belonged  to  herself, 
but  to  others.  It  was  doubtful,  indeed,  if,  since  the 
day  of  her  marriage,  she  had  been  profoundly  moved 
by  any  feeling  which  was  centred  merely  in  a  personal 
desire.  She  had  wanted  things  for  Oliver  and  for  the 
children,  but  for  herself  there  had  been  no  separate 
existence  apart  from  them. 

"Oliver,  I  never  dreamed  that  it  would  be  like  this. 
The  play  will  be  a  great  success — even  a  greater  one  than 
the  last,  won't  it,  dear?"  Her  face,  with  its  exquisite 
look  of  exaltation,  of  self-forgetfulness,  was  turned 


470  VIRGINIA 

eagerly  towards  the  crowd  of  feverish  pleasure-seekers 
that  passed  on,  pursuing  its  little  joys,  under  the 
garish  signs  of  the  street. 

"  Well,  it  ought  to  be,"  he  returned;  " it's  bad  enough 
anyway." 

His  eyes,  like  hers,  were  fixed  on  the  thronging 
streets,  but,  unlike  hers,  they  reflected  the  restless 
animation,  the  pathetic  hunger,  which  made  each  of 
those  passing  faces  appear  to  be  the  plastic  me 
dium  of  an  insatiable  craving  for  life.  Handsome, 
well-preserved,  a  little  over-coloured,  a  little  square  of 
figure,  with  his  look  of  worldly  importance,  of  assured 
material  success,  he  stood  to-day,  as  Cyrus  had  stood 
a  quarter  of  a  century  ago,  as  an  imposing  example  of 
that  Treadwell  spirit  from  which  his  youth  had  re 
volted. 

That  night,  when  they  had  finished  dinner,  and 
Oliver,  in  response  to  a  telephone  message,  had  hurried 
down  to  the  theatre,  Virginia  went  upstairs  to  her  room, 
and,  after  putting  on  the  lavender  silk  dressing-gown 
which  Miss  Willy  had  made  for  the  occasion,  sat  down 
to  write  her  weekly  letter  to  Harry. 

MY  DARLING  BOY. 

I  know  you  will  be  surprised  to  see  from  this  letter  that  I  am 
really  in  New  York  at  last  —  and  at  the  Waldorf!  It  seems  al 
most  like  a  dream  to  me,  and  whenever  I  shut  my  eyes,  I  find  my 
self  forgetting  that  I  am  not  in  Dinwiddie  —  but,  you  remember, 
your  father  had  always  promised  me  that  I  should  come  for  the 
first  night  of  his  new  play,  which  will  be  acted  to-morrow.  You 
simply  can't  imagine  till  you  get  here  how  famous  he  is  and  how 
interested  people  are  in  everything  about  him,  even  the  smallest 
trifles.  Wherever  you  look  you  see  advertisements  of  his  plays 
(he  has  three  running  now)  and  coming  up  Broadway  for  only  a 
block  or  two  last  night,  I  am  sure  that  I  saw  Miss  Oldcastle's  pic- 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  471 

ture  a  dozen  times.  I  should  think  she  would  hate  dreadfully  to 
have  to  make  herself  so  conspicuous  —  for  she  has  a  nice,  refined 
face  —  but  Oliver  says  all  actresses  have  to  do  it  if  they  want  to  get 
on.  He  takes  all  the  fuss  they  make  over  him  just  as  if  he  despised 
it,  though  I  am  sure  that  in  his  heart  he  can't  help  being  pleased. 
While  we  were  having  dinner,  everybody  in  the  dining-room  was 
turning  to  look  at  him,  and  if  I  hadn't  known,  of  course,  that  not  a 
soul  was  thinking  of  me,  I  should  have  felt  badly  because  I  hadn't 
time  to  change  my  dress  after  I  got  here.  All  the  other  women 
were  beautifully  dressed  (I  never  dreamed  that  there  were  so  many 
diamonds  in  the  world.  Miss  Willy  would  simply  go  crazy  over 
them),  but  I  didn't  mind  a  bit,  and  if  anybody  thought  of  me  at  all, 
of  course,  they  knew  that  I  had  just  stepped  off  the  train.  After 
dinner  your  father  went  to  the  theatre,  and  I  sat  downstairs  alone 
in  the  corridor  for  a  while  and  watched  the  people  coming  and 
going.  It  was  perfectly  fascinating  at  first.  I  never  saw  so  many 
beautiful  women,  and  their  hair  was  arranged  in  such  a  lovely  way, 
all  just  alike,  that  it  must  have  taken  hours  to  do  each  head.  The 
fashions  that  are  worn  here  are  not  in  the  least  like  those  of  Din- 
widdie,  though  Miss  Willy  made  my  black  brocade  exactly  like 
one  in  a  fashion  plate  that  came  directly  from  Paris,  but  I  know 
that  you  aren't  as  much  interested  in  this  as  Lucy  and  Jenny  would 
be.  The  dear  girls  are  both  well,  and  Lucy  is  carried  away  with 
her  stepchildren.  She  says  she  doesn't  see  why  every  woman 
doesn't  marry  a  widower.  Isn't  that  exactly  like  Lucy?  She  is 
always  so  funny.  If  only  one  of  you  were  here  with  me,  I  should 
enjoy  every  minute,  but  after  I'd  sat  there  for  a  while  in  the  midst 
of  all  those  strangers,  I  began  to  feel  a  little  lonely,  so  I  came  up 
stairs  to  write  you  this  letter.  New  York  is  a  fascinating  place  to 
visit,  but  I  am  glad  I  live  in  Dinwiddie  where  everybody  knows  me. 
And  now,  my  dearest  boy,  I  must  tell  you  how  perfectly  over 
joyed  I  was  to  get  your  last  letter,  and  to  know  that  you  are  so 
delighted  with  Oxford.  I  think  of  you  every  minute,  and  I  pray 
for  you  the  last  thing  at  night  before  I  get  into  bed.  Try  to  keep 
well  and  strong,  and  if  you  get  a  cold,  be  sure  not  to  let  it  run  on  till 
it  turns  to  a  hacking  cough.  Remember  that  Doctor  Eraser  always 
used  to  say  that  every  cough,  no  matter  how  slight,  is  dangerous.  I 
hope  you  aren't  studying  too  hard  or  overdoing  athletics.  It  is  so 
easy  to  tax  one's  strength  too  much  when  one  gets  excited.  I  am 


472  VIRGINIA 

sure  I  don't  know  what  to  think  of  the  English  students  being 
"standoffish"  with  Americans.  It  seems  very  foolish  of  them  not  to 
be  nice  and  friendly,  especially  to  Virginians,  who  were  really  English 
in  the  beginning.  But  I  am  glad  that  you  don't  mind,  and  that 
you  would  rather  be  a  countryman  of  George  Washington  than  a 
countryman  of  George  the  Third.  Of  course  England  is  the  great 
est  country  in  the  world  —  you  remember  your  grandfather  always 
said  that  —  and  we  owe  it  everything  that  we  have,  but  I  think  it 
very  silly  of  English  people  to  be  stiff  and  ill-mannered. 

I  hope  you  still  read  your  Bible,  darling,  and  that  you  find  time  to 
go  to  church  once  every  Sunday.  Even  if  it  seems  a  waste  of  time 
to  you,  it  would  have  pleased  your  grandfather,  and  for  his  sake  I 
hope  you  will  go  whenever  you  can  possibly  do  so.  It  was  so  sweet 
of  you  to  write  in  Addison's  Walk  because  you  did  not  want  to 
miss  my  Sunday  letter  and  yet  the  day  was  too  beautiful  not  to  be 
out  of  doors.  God  only  knows,  my  boy,  what  a  comfort  you  are  to 
me.  There  was  never  a  better  son  nor  one  who  was  loved  more 
devotedly. 

YOUR  MOTHER. 

In  the  morning,  with  the  breakfast  tray,  there  ar 
rived  a  bunch  of  orchids  from  one  of  Oliver's  theatrical 
friends,  who  had  heard  that  his  wife  was  in  town;  and 
while  Virginia  laid  the  box  carefully  in  the  bathtub, 
her  eyes  shone  with  the  grateful  light  which  came  into 
them  whenever  some  one  did  her  a  small  kindness  or 
courtesy. 

"They  will  be  lovely  for  me  to  wear  to-night, 
Oliver.  It  was  so  nice  of  him  to  send  them,  wasn't  it?  " 

"Yes,  it  was  rather  nice,"  Oliver  replied,  looking  up 
from  his  paper  at  the  pleased  sound  of  her  voice. 
Ever  since  his  return  at  a  late  hour  last  night,  she  had 
noticed  the  nervousness  in  his  manner  and  had  sym 
pathetically  attributed  it  to  his  anxiety  about  the  fate 
of  his  play.  It  was  so  like  Oliver  to  be  silent  and  self- 
absorbed  when  he  was  anxious. 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  473 

Through  the  day  he  was  absent,  and  when  he  re 
turned,  in  the  evening,  to  dress  for  the  theatre,  she  was 
standing  before  the  mirror  fastening  the  bunch  of 
orchids  on  the  front  of  her  gown.  As  he  entered,  she 
turned  toward  him  with  a  look  of  eager  interest,  of 
pleasant  yet  anxious  excitement.  She  had  never  in  her 
life,  except  on  the  morning  of  her  wedding  day,  taken 
so  long  to  dress ;  but  it  seemed  to  her  important  that  as 
Oliver's  wife  she  should  look  as  nice  as  she  could. 

"Am  I  all  right?"  she  asked  timidly,  while  she  cast 
a  doubtful  glance  in  the  mirror  at  the  skirt  of  the  black 
brocade. 

"Yes,  you're  all  right,"  he  responded,  without  look 
ing  at  her,  and  the  suppressed  pain  in  his  voice  caused 
her  to  move  suddenly  toward  him  with  the  question, 
"Aren't  you  well,  Oliver?" 

"Oh,  I'm  well,  but  I'm  tired.  I  had  a  headache  on 
the  way  up  and  I  haven't  been  able  to  shake  it  off." 

"Shall  I  get  you  something  for  it?" 

"No,  it  will  pass.  I'd  like  a  nap,  but  I  suppose  it's 
time  for  me  to  dress." 

"Yes,  it's  half -past  six,  and  we've  ordered  dinner 
for  seven." 

He  went  into  the  dressing-room,  and  turning  again 
to  the  mirror,  she  changed  the  position  of  the  bunch 
of  orchids,  and  gave  a  little  dissatisfied  pat  to  the  hair 
on  her  forehead.  If  only  she  could  bring  back  some 
of  the  bloom  and  the  freshness  of  youth!  The  glow 
had  gone  out  of  her  eyes;  the  winged  happiness, 
which  had  given  her  face  the  look  as  of  one  flying 
towards  life,  had  passed,  leaving  her  features  a  little 
wan  and  drawn,  and  fading  her  delicate  skin  to  the 
colour  of  withered  flowers.  Yet  the  little  smile,  which 


474  VIRGINIA 

lingered  like  autumn  sunshine  around  her  lips,  was 
full  of  that  sweetness  which  time  could  not  destroy, 
because  it  belonged  not  to  her  flesh,  but  to  an 
unalterable  quality  of  her  soul;  and  this  sweetness, 
which  she  exhaled  like  a  fragrance,  would  cause 
perhaps  one  of  a  hundred  strangers  to  glance  after 
her  with  the  thought,  "How  lovely  that  woman  must 
once  have  been!" 

"Are  you  ready?"  asked  Oliver,  coming  out  of  his 
dressing-room,  and  again  she  started  and  turned 
quickly  towards  him,  because  it  seemed  to  her  that  she 
was  hearing  his  voice  for  the  first  time.  So  nervous, 
so  irritable,  so  quivering  with  suppressed  feeling,  was  the 
sound  of  it,  that  she  hesitated  between  the  longing  to 
offer  sympathy  and  the  fear  that  her  words  might  only 
add  to  his  suffering. 

"Yes,  I  am  quite  ready,"  she  answered,  without 
adding  that  she  had  been  ready  for  more  than  an  hour; 
and  picking  up  her  wrap  from  the  bed,  she  passed 
ahead  of  him  through  the  door  which  he  had  opened. 
As  he  stopped  to  draw  the  key  from  the  lock,  her  eyes 
rested  with  pride  on  the  gloss  of  his  hair,  which  had 
gone  grey  in  the  last  year,  and  on  his  figure,  with  its 
square  shoulders  and  its  look  of  obvious  distinction, 
as  of  a  man  who  had  achieved  results  so  emphatically 
that  it  was  impossible  either  to  overlook  or  to  belittle 
them.  How  splendid  he  looked!  And  what  a  pity 
that,  after  all  his  triumphs,  he  should  still  be  so  ner 
vous  on  the  first  night  of  a  play ! 

In  the  elevator  there  was  a  woman  in  an  ermine 
wrap,  with  Titian  hair  under  a  jewelled  net;  and  Vir 
ginia's  eyes  were  suffused  with  pleasure  as  she  gazed  at 
her.  "I  never  saw  any  one  so  beautiful!"  she  ex- 


LIFE'S  CRUELTIES  475 

claimed  to  Oliver,  as  they  stepped  out  into  the  hall; 
but  he  merely  replied  indifferently:  "Was  she?  I 
didn't  notice."  Then  his  tone  lost  its  deadness.  "If 
you'll  wait  here  a  minute,  I'd  like  to  speak  to  Cran 
ston  about  something,"  he  said,  almost  eagerly.  "I 
shan't  keep  you  a  second." 

"Don't  worry  about  me,"  she  answered  cheerfully, 
pleased  at  the  sudden  change  in  his  manner.  "Stay 
as  long  as  you  like.  I  never  get  tired  watching  the 
people." 

He  hurried  off,  while,  dazzled  by  the  lights,  she  drew 
back  behind  a  sheltering  palm,  and  stood  a  little 
screened  from  the  brilliant  crowd  in  which  she  took 
such  innocent  pleasure.  "How  I  wish  Miss  Willy 
could  be  here,"  she  thought,  for  it  was  impossible  for 
her  to  feel  perfect  enjoyment  while  there  existed  the 
knowledge  that  another  person  would  have  found  even 
greater  delight  in  the  scene  than  she  was  finding  her 
self.  "How  gay  they  all  look  —  and  there  are  not  any 
old  people.  Everybody,  even  the  white-haired  women, 
dress  as  if  they  were  girls.  I  wonder  what  it  is  that 
gives  them  all  this  gloss  as  if  they  had  been  polished, 
the  same  gloss  that  has  come  on  Oliver  since  he  has 
been  so  successful?  What  a  short  time  he  stayed. 
He  is  coming  back  already,  and  every  single  person  is 
turning  to  look  at  him." 

Then  a  voice  beyond  the  palm  spoke  as  distinctly 
as  if  the  words  were  uttered  into  her  ear.  " That's 
Treadwell  over  there  —  a  good-looking  man,  isn't  he? 

-  but  have  you  seen  the]dowdy,  middle-aged  woman  he 
is  married  to?  It's  a  pity  that  all  great  men  marry 
young  —  and  now  they  say,  you  know,  that  he  is 
madly  in  love  with  Margaret  Oldcastle 


CHAPTER  V 

BITTERNESS 

IN  THE  night,  after  a  restless  sleep,  she  awoke  in 
terror.  A  hundred  incidents,  a  hundred  phrases, 
looks,  gestures,  which  she  had  thought  meaningless 
until  last  evening,  flashed  out  of  the  darkness  and  hung 
there,  blazing,  against  the  background  of  the  night. 
Yesterday  these  things  had  appeared  purposeless;  and 
now  it  seemed  to  her  that  only  her  incredible  blindness, 
only  her  childish  inability  to  face  any  painful  fact  until 
it  struck  her  between  the  eyes,  had  kept  her  from  dis 
covering  the  truth  before  it  was  thrust  on  her  by  the 
idle  chatter  of  strangers.  A  curious  rigidity,  as  if  she 
had  been  suddenly  paralyzed,  passed  from  her  heart, 
which  seemed  to  have  ceased  beating,  and  crept  through 
her  limbs  to  her  motionless  hands  and  feet.  Though 
she  longed  to  call  out  and  awaken  Oliver,  who,  com 
plaining  of  insomnia,  spent  the  night  in  the  adjoining 
room,  this  immobility,  which  was  like  the  graven  im 
mobility  of  death,  held  her  imprisoned  there  as  speech 
less  and  still  as  if  she  lay  in  her  coffin.  Only  her  brain 
seemed  on  fire,  so  pitilessly,  so  horribly  alive  had  it 
become. 

From  the  street  beyond  the  dim  square  of  the  win 
dow,  across  which  the  curtains  were  drawn,  she  could 
hear  the  ceaseless  passing  of  carriages  and  motor  cars; 
but  her  thoughts  had  grown  so  confused  that  for  a  long 

476 


BITTERNESS  477 

while,  as  she  lay  there,  chill  and  rigid  under  the  bed 
clothes,  she  could  not  separate  the  outside  sounds  from 
the  tumult  within  her  brain.  "Now  that  I  know  the 
truth  I  must  decide  what  is  best  to  do,"  she  thought 
quite  calmly.  "As  soon  as  this  noise  stops  I  must 
think  it  all  over  and  decide  what  is  best  to  do."  But 
around  this  one  lucid  idea  the  discordant  roar  of  the 
streets  seemed  to  gather  force  until  it  raged  with  the 
violence  of  a  storm.  It  was  impossible  to  think  clearly 
until  this  noise,  which,  in  some  strange  way,  was  both 
in  the  street  outside  and  within  the  secret  chambers 
of  her  soul,  had  subsided  and  given  place  to  the  quiet 
of  night  again.  Then  gradually  the  tempest  of  sound 
died  away,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  stillness  which 
followed  it  she  lived  over  every  hour,  every  minute, 
of  that  last  evening  when  it  had  seemed  to  her  that 
she  was  crucified  by  Oliver's  triumph.  She  saw  him 
as  he  came  towards  her  down  the  shining  corridor, 
easy,  brilliant,  impressive,  a  little  bored  by  his  celeb 
rity,  yet  with  the  look  of  vital  well-being,  of  second 
youth,  which  separated  and  distinguished  him  from 
the  curious  gazers  among  whom  he  moved.  She  saw 
him  opposite  to  her  during  the  long  dinner,  which  she 
could  not  eat;  she  saw  him  beside  her  in  the  car  which 
carried  them  to  the  theatre;  and  clearer  than  ever, 
as  if  a  burning  iron  had  seared  the  memory  into  her 
brain,  she  saw  him  lean  on  the  railing  of  the  box,  with 
his  eyes  on  the  stage  where  Margaret  Oldcastle, 
against  the  lowered  curtain,  smiled  her  charming  smile 
at  the  house.  It  had  been  a  wonderful  night,  and 
through  it  all  she  had  felt  the  iron  nails  of  her  cruci 
fixion  driven  into  her  soul. 

Breaking  away  from  that  chill  of  terror  with  which 


478  VIRGINIA 

she  had  awakened,  she  left  the  bed  and  went  over  to 
the  window,  where  she  drew  the  heavy  curtains  aside. 
In  Fifth  Avenue  the  electric  lights  sparkled  like  frost 
on  the  pavement,  while  beyond  the  roofs  of  the  houses 
the  first  melancholy  glow  of  a  winter's  sunrise 
was  suffusing  the  sky  with  red.  While  she  watched 
it,  a  wave  of  unutterable  loneliness  swept  over  her  — 
of  that  profound  spiritual  loneliness  which  comes  to 
one  at  dawn  in  a  great  city,  when  knowledge  of 
the  sleeping  millions  within  reach  seems  only  to 
intensify  the  fact  of  individual  littleness  and  isolation. 
She  felt  that  she  stood  alone,  not  merely  in  the  world, 
but  in  the  universe;  and  the  thought  that  Oliver  slept 
there  in  the  next  room  made  more  poignant  this 
feeling,  as  though  she  were  solitary  and  detached  in  the 
midst  of  limitless  space.  Even  if  she  called  him  and 
he  came  to  her,  she  could  not  reach  him.  Even 
if  he  stood  at  her  side,  the  immeasurable  distance 
between  them  would  not  lessen. 

When  the  morning  came,  she  dressed  herself  in  her 
prettiest  gown,  a  violet  cloth,  with  ruffles  of  old  lace 
at  the  throat  and  wrists;  but  this  dress,  of  which  she 
had  been  so  proud  in  Dinwiddie  that  she  had  saved 
it  for  months  in  order  to  have  it  fresh  for  New  York, 
appeared  somehow  to  have  lost  its  charm  and  dis 
tinction,  and  she  knew  that  last  evening  had  not  only 
destroyed  her  happiness,  but  had  robbed  her  of  her 
confidence  in  the  taste  and  the  workmanship  of  Miss 
Willy.  Knowledge,  she  saw  now,  had  shattered  the 
little  beliefs  of  life  as  well  as  the  large  ones. 

Oliver  liked  to  breakfast  in  his  dressing-gown,  fresh 
from  his  bath  and  eager  for  the  papers,  so  when  he 
came  hurriedly  into  the  sitting-room,  the  shining 


BITTERNESS  479 

tray  was  already  awaiting  him,  and  she  sat  pouring 
his  coffee  in  a  band  of  sunlight  beside  the  table.  This 
sunlight,  so  merciful  to  the  violet  gown,  shone  piti 
lessly  on  the  darkened  hollows  which  the  night  had 
left  under  her  eyes,  and  on  the  little  lines  which  had 
gathered  around  her  bravely  smiling  mouth. 

"It  was  a  wonderful  success,  all  the  papers  say  so, 
Oliver,"  she  said,  when  he  had  seated  himself  at  the 
other  end  of  the  table  and  taken  the  coffee  from 
her  hand,  which  shook  in  spite  of  her  effort. 

"Yes,  it  went  off  well,  there's  no  doubt  of  it," 
he  answered  cheerfully,  so  cheerfully  that  for  a 
minute  a  blind  hope  shot  trembling  through  her  mind. 
Could  it  all  have  been  a  dream?  Was  there  some 
dreadful  mistake?  Would  she  presently  discover  that 
she  had  imagined  that  night  of  useless  agony  through 
which  she  had  passed? 

"The  audience  was  so  sympathetic.  I  saw  a  number 
of  women  crying  in  the  last  act  when  the  heroine 
comes  back  to  her  old  home." 

"It  caught  them.  I  thought  it  would.  It's  the 
kind  of  thing  they  like." 

He  opened  a  paper  as  he  spoke,  and  seeing  that  he 
wanted  to  read  the  criticisms,  she  broke  his  eggs  for 
him,  and  then  turning  to  her  own  breakfast  tried  in 
vain  to  swallow  the  piece  of  toast  which  she  had 
buttered.  But  it  was  useless.  She  could  not  eat; 
she  could  not  even  drink  her  coffee,  which  had  stood 
so  long  that  it  had  grown  tepid.  A  feeling  of  spiritual 
nausea,  beside  which  all  physical  sensations  were  as 
trivial  and  meaningless  as  the  stinging  of  wasps, 
pervaded  her  soul  and  body,  and  choked  her,  like 
unshed  tears,  whenever  she  tried  to  force  a  bit  of  food 


480  VIRGINIA 

between  her  trembling  lips.  All  the  casual  interests 
with  which  she  filled  her  days,  those  seemingly  small, 
yet  actually  tremendous  interests  without  which  daily 
life  becomes  almost  unlivable,  flagged  suddenly  and 
died  while  she  sat  there.  Nothing  mattered  any  longer, 
neither  the  universe  nor  that  little  circle  of  it  which 
she  inhabited,  neither  life  nor  death,  neither  Oliver's 
success  nor  the  food  which  she  was  trying  to  eat. 
This  strange  sickness  which  had  fallen  upon  her 
affected  not  only  her  soul  and  body,  but  everything 
that  surrounded  her,  every  person  or  object  at  which 
she  looked,  every  stranger  in  the  street  below,  every 
roof  which  she  could  see  sharply  outlined  against  the 
glittering  blue  of  the  sky.  Something  had  passed  out 
of  them  all,  some  essential  quality  which  united  them 
to  reality,  some  inner  secret  of  being  without  which 
the  animate  and  the  inanimate  alike  became  no  better 
than  phantoms.  The  spirit  which  made  life  vital  had 
gone  out  of  the  world.  And  she  felt  that  this  would 
always  be  so,  that  the  next  minute  and  the  next  year 
and  all  the  years  that  came  afterwards  would  bring 
to  her  merely  the  effort  of  living  —  since  Life,  having 
used  her  for  its  dominant  purpose,  had  no  further 
need  of  her.  Once  only  the  thought  occurred  to 
her  that  there  were  women  who  might  keep  their  own 
even  now  by  fighting  against  the  loss  of  it,  by  pas 
sionately  refusing  to  surrender  what  they  could  no 
longer  hold  as  a  gift.  But  with  the  idea  there  came 
also  that  self-knowledge  which  told  her  that  she 
was  not  one  of  these.  The  strength  in  her  was 
the  strength  of  passiveness;  she  could  endure, 
but  she  could  not  battle.  Long  ago,  as  long  ago 
as  the  night  on  which  she  had  watched  in  the  shadow 


BITTERNESS  481 

of  death  beside  Harry's  bed,  she  had  lost  that  energy 
of  soul  which  had  once  flamed  up  in  her  with  her 
three  days'  jealousy  of  Abby.  It  was  her  youth  and 
beauty  then  which  had  inspirited  her,  and  she  was 
wise  enough  to  know  that  the  passions  which  be 
come  youth  appear  ridiculous  in  middle-age. 

Having  drunk  his  coffee,  Oliver  passed  his  cup  to 
her,  and  laid  down  his  paper. 

"You  look  tired,  Virginia.  I  hope  it  hasn't  been 
too  much  for  you?" 

" Oh,  no.     Have  you  quite  got  over  your  headache?  " 

"Pretty  much,  but  those  lights  last  night  were 
rather  trying.  Don't  put  any  cream  in  this  time. 
I  want  the  stimulant." 

"Perhaps  it  has  got  cold.     Shall  I  ring  for  fresh?" 

"It  doesn't  matter.  This  will  do  quite  as  well. 
Have  you  any  shopping  that  you  would  like  to  do  this 
morning?" 

Shopping!  When  her  whole  world  had  crumbled 
around  her!  For  an  instant  the  lump  in  her  throat 
made  speech  impossible;  then  summoning  that  mild 
yet  indestructible  spirit,  which  was  as  the  spirit  of  all 
those  generations  of  women  who  lived  in  her  blood, 
she  answered  gently: 

"Yes,  I  had  intended  to  buy  some  presents  for 
the  girls." 

"Then  you'd  better  take  a  taxicab  for  the  morning. 
I  suppose  you  know  the  names  of  the  shops  you 
want  to  go  to?" 

"Oh,  yes.  I  know  the  names.  Are  you  going  to 
the  theatre?" 

"I've  got  to  change  a  few  lines  in  the  play,  and  the 
sooner  I  go  about  it  the  better." 


482  VIRGINIA 

"Then  don't  bother  about  me,  dear.  I'll  just  put 
on  my  long  coat  over  this  dress  and  go  out  right  after 
breakfast." 

"But  you  haven't  eaten  anything,"  he  remarked, 
glancing  at  her  plate. 

"I  wasn't  hungry.  The  fresh  air  will  do  me  good. 
It  has  turned  so  much  warmer,  and  the  snow  is  all 
melting." 

As  she  spoke,  she  rose  from  the  table  and  began  to 
prepare  herself  for  the  street,  putting  on  the  black 
hat  with  the  ostrich  tip  and  the  bunch  of  violets  on 
one  side,  which  didn't  seem  just  right  since  she  had 
come  to  New  York,  and  carefully  wrapping  the  ends 
of  her  fur  neck-piece  around  her  throat.  It  was  already 
ten  o'clock,  for  Oliver  had  slept  late,  and  she  must  be 
hurrying  if  she  hoped  to  get  through  her  shopping 
before  luncheon.  While  she  dressed,  a  wan  spirit  of 
humour  entered  into  her,  and  she  saw  how  absurd 
it  was  that  she  should  rush  about  from  shop  to  shop, 
buying  things  that  did  not  matter  in  order  to  fill  a 
life  that  mattered  as  little  as  they  did.  To  her, 
whose  mental  outlook  had  had  in  it  so  little  humour, 
it  seemed  suddenly  that  the  whole  of  life  was 
ridiculous.  Why  should  she  have  sat  there,  pouring 
Oliver's  coffee  and  talking  to  him  about  insignifi 
cant  things,  when  her  heart  was  bursting  with  this 
sense  of  something  gone  out  of  existence,  with  this 
torturing  realization  of  the  irretrievable  failure  of 
love? 

Taking  up  her  muff  and  her  little  black  bag  from 
the  bureau,  she  looked  back  at  him  with  a  smile 
as  she  turned  towards  the  door. 

"Good-bye.     Will  you  be  here  for  luncheon?" 


BITTERNESS  483 

"I'm  afraid  I  can't.  I've  an  appointment  down 
town,  but  I'll  come  back  as  early  as  I  can." 

Then  she  went  out  and  along  the  hall  to  the  elevator, 
in  which  there  was  a  little  girl,  who  reminded  her  of 
Jenny,  in  charge  of  a  governness  in  spectacles.  She 
smiled  at  her  almost  unconsciously,  so  spontaneous, 
so  interwoven  with  her  every  mood  was  her  love  for 
children;  but  the  little  girl,  being  very  proper  for 
her  years,  did  not  smile  back,  and  a  stab  of  pain  went 
through  Virginia's  heart. 

"Even  children  have  ceased  to  care  for  me,"  she 
thought. 

At  the  door,  where  she  waited  a  few  minutes  for 
her  taxicab,  a  young  bride,  with  her  eyes  shining 
with  joy,  stood  watching  her  husband  while  he  talked 
with  an  acquaintance,  and  it  seemed  to  Virginia  that 
it  was  a  vision  of  her  own  youth  which  had  risen  to 
torment  her.  "That  was  the  way  I  looked  at  Oliver 
twenty -five  years  ago,"  she  said  to  herself;  "twenty- 
five  years  ago,  when  I  was  young  and  he  loved  me." 
Then,  even  while  the  intolerable  pain  was  still  in  her 
heart,  she  felt  that  something  of  the  buoyant  hope 
fulness  of  that  other  bride  entered  into  her  and  restored 
her  courage.  A  resolution,  so  new  that  it  was  born 
of  the  joyous  glance  of  a  stranger,  and  yet  so  old 
that  it  seemed  a  part  of  that  lost  spirit  of  youth  which 
had  once  carried  her  in  a  wild  race  over  the  Virginian 
meadows,  a  resolution  which  belonged  at  the  same 
time  to  this  other  woman  and  to  herself,  awoke  in 
her  and  mingled  like  a  draught  of  wine  with  her  blood. 
"I  will  not  give  up,"  she  thought.  "I  will  go  to  her. 
Perhaps  she  does  not  know  —  perhaps  she  does  not 
understand.  I  will  go  to  her,  and  everything  may 


484  VIRGINIA 

be  different."  Then  her  taxicab  was  called,  and 
stepping  into  it,  she  gave  the  name  not  of  a  shop, 
but  of  the  apartment  house  in  which  Margaret  Old- 
castle  lived. 

It  was  one  of  those  February  days  when,  because 
of  the  promise  of  spring  in  the  air,  men  begin  suddenly 
to  think  of  April.  The  sky  was  of  an  intense  blue, 
with  little  clouds,  as  soft  as  feathers,  above  the  western 
horizon.  On  the  pavement  the  last  patches  of  snow 
were  rapidly  melting,  and  the  gentle  breeze  which 
blew  in  at  the  open  window  of  the  cab,  was 
like  a  caressing  breath  on  Virginia's  cheek.  "It 
must  be  that  she  does  not  understand,"  she  re 
peated,  and  this  thought  gave  her  confidence  and 
filled  her  with  that  unconquerable  hope  of  the  fu 
ture  without  which  she  felt  that  living  would  be 
impossible.  Even  the  faces  in  the  street  cheered 
her,  for  it  seemed  to  her  that  if  life  were  really 
what  she  had  believed  it  to  be  last  night,  these 
men  and  women  could  not  walk  so  buoyantly,  could 
not  smile  so  gaily,  could  not  spend  so  much  thought 
and  time  on  the  way  they  looked  and  the  things 
they  wore.  "No,  it  must  have  been  a  mistake, 
a  ghastly  mistake,"  she  insisted  almost  passion 
ately.  "Some  day  we  shall  laugh  over  it  to 
gether  as  we  laughed  over  my  jealousy  of  Abby. 
He  never  loved  Abby,  not  for  a  minute,  and  yet  I 
imagined  that  he  did  and  suffered  agony  because  of 
it."  And  her  taxicab  went  on  merrily  between  the 
cheerful  crowds  on  the  pavements,  gliding  among  gor 
geous  motor  cars  and  carriages  drawn  by  high-stepping 
horses  and  pedlers'  carts  drawn  by  horses  that  stepped 
high  no  longer,  among  rich  people  and  poor  people, 


BITTERNESS  485 

among  surfeited  people  and  hungry  people,  among  gay 
people  and  sad  people,  among  contented  people  and 
rebellious  people  —  among  all  these,  who  hid  their 
happiness  or  their  sorrow  under  the  mask  of  their 
features,  her  cab  spun  onward  bearing  her  lightly  on 
the  most  reckless  act  of  her  life. 

At  the  door  of  the  apartment  house  she  was  told 
that  Miss  Oldcastle  could  not  be  seen,  but,  after  sending 
up  her  card  and  waiting  a  few  moments  in  the  hall 
before  a  desk  which  reminded  her  of  a  gilded  squirrel- 
cage,  she  was  escorted  to  the  elevator  and  borne  upward 
to  the  ninth  landing.  Here,  in  response  to  the  tinkle 
of  a  little  bell  outside  of  a  door,  she  was  ushered  into 
a  reception  room  which  was  so  bare  alike  of  unneces 
sary  furniture  and  of  the  Victorian  tradition  to  which 
she  was  accustomed,  that  for  an  instant  she  stood 
confused  by  the  very  strangeness  of  her  surroundings. 
Then  a  charming  voice,  with  what  sounded  to  her 
ears  as  an  affected  precision  of  speech,  said:  "Mrs. 
Treadwell,  this  is  so  good  of  you!"  and,  turning,  she 
found  herself  face  to  face  with  the  other  woman  in 
Oliver's  life. 

"I  saw  you  at  the  play  last  night,"  the  voice  went 
on,  "and  I  hoped  to  get  a  chance  to  speak  to  you, 
but  the  reporters  simply  invaded  my  dressing-room. 
Won't  you  sit  here  in  the  sunshine?  Shall  I  close  the 
window,  or,  like  myself,  are  you  a  worshipper  of  the 
sun?" 

"Oh,  no,  leave  it  open.  I  like  it."  At  any  other 
moment  she  would  have  been  afraid  of  an  open  window 
in  February;  but  it  seemed  to  her  now  that  if  she 
could  not  feel  the  air  in  her  face  she  should  faint. 
With  the  first  sight  of  Margaret  Oldcastle,  as  she  looked 


486  VIRGINIA 

into  that  smiling  face,  in  which  the  inextinguishable 
youth  was  less  a  period  of  life  than  an  attribute  of 
spirit,  she  realized  that  she  was  fighting  not  a  woman, 
but  the  very  structure  of  life.  The  glamour  of  the 
footlights  had  contributed  nothing  to  the  flame-like 
personality  of  the  actress.  In  her  simple  frock  of 
brown  woollen,  with  a  wide  collar  of  white  lawn 
turned  back  from  her  splendid  throat,  she  embodied 
not  so  much  the  fugitive  charm  of  youth,  as  that 
burning  vitality  over  which  age  has  no  power.  The 
intellect  in  her  spoke  through  her  noble  rather  than 
beautiful  features,  through  her  ardent  eyes,  through 
her  resolute  mouth,  through  every  perfect  gesture 
with  which  she  accompanied  her  words.  She  stood 
not  only  for  the  elemental  forces,  but  for  the  free 
woman;  and  her  freedom,  like  that  of  man,  had  been 
built  upon  the  strewn  bodies  of  the  weaker.  The 
law  of  sacrifice,  which  is  the  basic  law  of  life,  ruled 
here  as  it  ruled  in  mother-love  and  in  the  industrial 
warfare  of  men.  Her  triumph  was  less  the  triumph 
of  the  individual  than  of  the  type.  The  justice  not 
of  society,  but  of  nature,  was  on  her  side,  for  she  was 
one  with  evolution  and  with  the  resistless  principle  of 
change.  Vaguely,  without  knowing  that  she  realized 
these  things,  Virginia  felt  that  the  struggle  was  useless; 
and  with  the  sense  of  failure  there  awoke  in  her  that 
instinct  of  good  breeding,  that  inherited  obligation 
to  keep  the  surface  of  life  sweet,  which  was  so  much 
older  and  so  much  stronger  than  the  revolt  in  her  soul. 
"You  were  wonderful  last  night.  I  wanted  to 
tell  you  how  wonderful  I  thought  you,"  she  said 
gently.  "You  made  the  play  a  success  —  all  the 
papers  say  so  this  morning." 


BITTERNESS  487 

"Well,  it  was  an  easy  play  to  make  successful," 
replied  the  other,  while  a  fleeting  curiosity,  as  though 
she  were  trying  to  explain  something  which  she  did 
not  quite  understand,  appeared  in  her  face  and  made 
it,  with  its  redundant  vitality,  almost  coarse  for  an 
instant.  "It's  the  kind  the  public  wants,  you  couldn't 
help  making  it  go." 

The  almost  imperceptible  conflict  which  had  flashed 
in  their  eyes  when  they  met,  had  died  suddenly  down, 
and  the  dignity  which  had  been  on  the  side  of  the 
other  woman  appeared  to  have  passed  from  her  to 
Virginia.  This  dignity,  which  was  not  that  of  triumph, 
but  of  a  defeat  which  surrenders  everything  except 
the  inviolable  sanctities  of  the  spirit,  shielded  her 
like  an  impenetrable  armour  against  both  resentment 
and  pity.  She  stood  there  wrapped  in  a  gentleness 
more  unassailable  than  any  passion. 

"You  did  a  great  deal  for  it  and  a  great  deal  for 
my  husband,"  she  said,  while  her  voice  lingered 
unconsciously  over  the  word.  "He  has  told  me  often 
that  without  your  acting  he  could  never  have  reached 
the  position  he  holds." 

Then,  because  it  was  impossible  to  say  the  things 
she  had  come  to  say,  because  even  in  the  supreme 
crises  of  life  she  could  not  lay  down  the  manner  of  a 
lady,  she  smiled  the  grave  smile  with  which  her 
mother  had  walked  through  a  ruined  country,  and 
taking  up  her  muff,  which  she  had  laid  on  the  table, 
passed  out  into  the  hall.  She  had  let  the  chance 
go  by,  she  had  failed  in  her  errand,  yet  she  knew  that, 
even  though  it  cost  her  her  life,  even  though  it  cost 
her  a  thing  far  dearer  than  life  —  her  happiness  —  she 
could  not  have  done  otherwise.  In  the  crucial  moment 


488  VIRGINIA 

it  was  principle  and  not  passion  which  she  obeyed; 
but  this  principle,  filtering  down  through  generations, 
had  become  so  inseparable  from  the  sources  of  char 
acter,  that  it  had  passed  at  last  through  the  intellect 
into  the  blood.  She  could  no  more  have  bared  her 
soul  to  that  other  woman  than  she  could  have  stripped 
her  body  naked  in  the  market-place. 

At  the  door  her  cab  was  still  waiting,  and  she  gave 
the  driver  the  name  of  the  toy  shop  at  which  she 
intended  to  buy  presents  for  Lucy's  stepchildren. 
Though  her  heart  was  breaking  within  her,  there 
was  no  impatience  in  her  manner  when  she  was  obliged 
to  wait  some  time  before  she  could  find  the  particular 
sort  of  doll  for  which  Lucy  had  written;  and  she 
smiled  at  the  apologetic  shopgirl  with  the  forbearing 
consideration  for  others  which  grief  could  not  de 
stroy.  She  put  her  own  anguish  aside  as  utterly 
in  the  selection  of  the  doll  as  she  would  have  done 
had  it  been  the  peace  of  nations  and  not  a  child's 
pleasure  that  depended  upon  her  effacement  of  self. 
Then,  when  the  purchase  was  made,  she  took  out  her 
shopping  list  from  her  bag  and  passed  as  conscien 
tiously  to  the  choice  of  Jenny's  clothes.  Not  until 
the  morning  had  gone,  and  she  rolled  again  up  Fifth 
Avenue  towards  the  hotel,  did  she  permit  her  thoughts 
to  return  to  the  stifled  agony  within  her  heart. 

To  her  surprise  Oliver  was  awaiting  her  in  their 
sitting-room,  and  with  her  first  look  into  his  face, 
she  understood  that  he  had  reached  in  her  absence 
a  decision  against  which  he  had  struggled  for  days. 
For  an  instant  her  strength  seemed  fainting  as  before 
an  impossible  effort.  Then  the  shame  in  his  eyes 
awoke  in  her  the  longing  to  protect  him,  to  spare  him, 


BITTERNESS  489 

to  make  even  this  terrible  moment  easier  for  him  than 
he  could  make  it  alone.  With  the  feeling,  a  crowd 
of  memories  thronged  through  her  mind,  as  though 
called  there  by  that  impulse  to  shield  which  was 
so  deeply  interwoven  with  the  primal  passion  of 
motherhood.  She  saw  Oliver's  face  as  it  had  looked 
on  that  spring  afternoon  when  she  had  first  seen 
him;  she  saw  it  as  he  put  the  ring  on  her  hand  at 
the  altar;  she  saw  it  bending  over  her  after  the  birth 
of  her  first  child;  and  then  suddenly  his  face  changed 
to  the  face  of  Harry,  and  she  saw  again  the  little  bed 
under  the  hanging  sheet  and  herself  sitting  there  in 
the  faintly  quivering  circle  of  light.  She  watched 
again  the  slow  fall  of  the  leaves,  one  by  one,  as  they 
turned  at  the  stem  and  drifted  against  the  white 
curtains  of  the  window  across  the  street. 

"Oliver,"  she  said  gently,  so  gently  that  she  might 
have  been  speaking  to  her  sick  child,  "would  you 
rather  that  I  should  go  back  to  Dinwiddie  to-night?" 

He  did  not  answer,  but,  turning  away  from  her,  laid 
his  head  down  on  his  arm,  which  he  had  outstretched 
on  the  table,  and  she  saw  a  shiver  of  pain  pass  through 
his  body  as  if  it  had  been  struck  a  physical  blow. 
And  just  as  she  had  put  herself  aside  when  she 
bought  the  doll,  so  now  she  forgot  her  own  suffering 
in  the  longing  to  respond  to  his  need. 

"I  can  take  the  night  train  —  now  that  I  have 
seen  the  play  there  is  no  reason  why  I  should  stay. 
I  have  got  through  my  shopping." 

Raising  his  head,  he  looked  up  into  her  face.  "  What 
ever  happens,  Virginia,  will  you  believe  that  I  never 
wanted  to  hurt  you?"  he  asked. 

For  a  moment  she  felt  that  the  strain  was  intolerable, 


490  VIRGINIA 

and  a  fear  entered  her  mind  lest  she  should  faint  or 
weep  and  so  make  things  harder  than  they  should 
be  able  to  bear. 

"You  mean  that  something  must  happen  —  that 
there  will  be  a  break  between  us?"  she  said. 

Leaving  the  table,  he  walked  to  the  window  and 
back  before  he  answered  her. 

"I  can't  go  on  this  way.  I'm  not  that  sort.  A 
generation  ago,  I  suppose,  we  should  have  done  it  — 
but  we've  lost  grip,  we've  lost  endurance."  Then 
he  cried  out  suddenly,  as  if  he  were  justifying  him 
self:  "It  is  hell.  I've  been  in  hell  for  a  year  — 
don't  you  see  it?" 

After  his  violence,  her  voice  sounded  almost  lifeless, 
so  quiet,  so  utterly  free  from  passion,  was  its  quality. 

"As  long  as  that  —  for  a  year?"  she  asked. 

"Oh,  longer,  but  it  has  got  worse.  It  has  got 
unendurable.  I've  fought  —  God  knows  I've  fought 
—  but  I  can't  stand  it.  I've  got  to  do  something. 
I've  got  to  find  a  way.  You  must  have  seen  it  coming, 
Virginia.  You  must  have  seen  that  this  thing  is 
stronger  than  I  am." 

"Do  —  do  you  want  her  so  much?"  and  she,  who 
had  learned  from  life  not  to  want,  looked  at  him  with 
the  pity  which  he  might  have  seen  in  her  eyes  had 
he  stabbed  her. 

"So  much  that  I'm  going  mad.  There's  no  other 
end  to  it.  It's  been  coming  on  for  two  years  —  all  the 
time  I've  been  away  from  Dinwiddie  I've  been  fight 
ing  it." 

She  did  not  answer,  and  when,  after  the  silence  had 
grown  oppressive,  he  turned  back  from  the  window 
through  which  he  had  been  gazing,  he  could  not 


BITTERNESS  491 

be  sure  that  she  had  heard  him.  So  still  she  seemed 
that  she  was  like  a  woman  of  marble. 

"You're  too  good  for  me,  that's  the  trouble.  You've 
been  too  good  for  me  from  the  beginning,"  he  said. 

Unfastening  her  coat,  which  she  had  kept  on,  she 
laid  it  on  the  sofa  at  her  back,  and  then  put  up  her 
hands  to  take  out  her  hatpins. 

"I  must  pack  my  things,"  she  said  suddenly.  "Will 
you  engage  my  berth  back  to  Dinwiddie  for  to-night?" 

He  nodded  without  speaking,  and  she  added  hastily, 
"I  shan't  go  down  again  before  starting.  But  there 
is  no  need  that  you  should  go  to  the  train  with  me." 

At  this  he  turned  back  from  the  door  where  he 
had  waited  with  his  hand  on  the  knob.  "Won't 
you  let  me  do  even  that?"  he  asked,  and  his  voice 
sounded  so  like  Harry's  that  a  sob  broke  from  her 
lips.  The  point  was  so  small  a  one  —  all  points 
seemed  to  her  so  small  —  that  her  will  died  down 
and  she  yielded  without  protest.  What  did  it  matter 
—  what  did  anything  matter  to  her  now? 

"I'll  send  up  your  luncheon,"  he  added  almost 
gratefully.  "You  will  be  ill  if  you  don't  eat  some 
thing."  ^ 

"No,  please  don't.  I  am  not  hungry,"  she  answered, 
and  then  he  went  out  softly,  as  though  he  were  leaving 
a  sick-room,  and  left  her  alone  with  her  anguish  — 
and  her  packing. 

Without  turning  in  her  chair,  without  taking  off 
her  hat,  from  which  she  had  drawn  the  pins,  she  sat 
there  like  a  woman  in  whom  the  spirit  has  been 
suddenly  stricken.  Beyond  the  window  the  perfect 
day,  with  its  haunting  reminder  of  the  spring,  was 
lengthening  slowly  into  afternoon,  and  through  the  slant 


492  VIRGINIA 

sunbeams  the  same  gay  crowd  passed  in  streams  on 
the  pavements.  On  the  roof  of  one  of  the  opposite 
houses  a  flag  was  flying,  and  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
sight  of  that  flag  waving  under  the  blue  sky  was 
bound  up  forever  with  the  intolerable  pain  in  her 
heart.  And  with  that  strange  passivity  of  the  nerves 
which  nature  mercifully  sends  to  those  who  have 
learned  submission  to  suffering,  to  those  whose  strength 
is  the  strength,  not  of  resistance,  but  of  endurance, 
she  felt  that  as  long  as  she  sat  there,  relaxed  and 
motionless,  she  had  in  a  way  withdrawn  herself  from 
the  struggle  to  live.  If  she  might  only  stay  like  this 
forever,  without  moving,  without  thinking,  without 
feeling,  while  she  died  slowly,  inch  by  inch,  spirit  and 
body. 

A  knock  came  at  the  door,  and  as  she  moved  to 
answer  it,  she  felt  that  life  returned  in  a  slow  throbbing 
agony,  as  if  her  blood  were  forced  back  again  into 
veins  from  which  it  had  ebbed.  When  the  tray  was 
placed  on  the  table  beside  her,  she  looked  up  with  a 
mild,  impersonal  curiosity  at  the  waiter,  as  the 
dead  might  look  back  from  their  freedom  and 
detachment  on  the  unreal  figures  of  the  living.  "I 
wonder  what  he  thinks  about  it  all?"  she  thought 
vaguely,  as  she  searched  in  her  bag  for  his  tip.  "I 
wonder  if  he  sees  how  absurd  and  unnecessary  all 
the  things  are  that  he  does  day  after  day,  year  after 
year,  like  the  rest  of  us?  I  wonder  if  he  ever  revolts 
with  this  unspeakable  weariness  from  waiting  on  other 
people  and  watching  them  eat?"  But  the  waiter, 
with  his  long  sallow  face,  his  inscrutable  eyes,  and  his 
general  air  of  having  petrified  under  the  surface,  was 
as  enigmatical  as  life. 


BITTERNESS  493 

After  he  had  gone  out,  she  rose  from  her  untasted 
luncheon,  and  going  into  her  bedroom,  took  the  black 
brocaded  gown  off  the  hanger  and  stuffed  the  sleeves 
with  tissue  paper  as  carefully  as  if  the  world  had  not 
crumbled  around  her.  Then  she  packed  away  her 
wrapper  and  her  bedroom  slippers  and  shook  out  and 
folded  the  dresses  she  had  not  worn.  For  a  time  she 
worked  on  mechanically,  hardly  conscious  of  what 
she  was  doing,  hardly  conscious  even  that  she  was 
alive.  Then  slowly,  softly,  like  a  gentle  rain,  her 
tears  fell  into  the  trunk,  on  each  separate  garment  as 
she  smoothed  it  and  laid  it  away. 

At  half-past  eight  o'clock  she  was  waiting  with  her 
hat  and  coat  on  when  Oliver  came  in,  followed  by  the 
porter  who  was  to  take  down  her  bags.  She  knew 
that  he  had  brought  the  man  in  order  to  avoid  all  pos 
sibility  of  an  emotional  scene;  and  she  could  have 
smiled,  had  her  spirit  been  less  wan  and  stricken,  at 
this  sign  of  a  moral  cowardice  which  was  so  charac 
teristic.  It  was  his  way,  she  understood  now,  though 
she  did  not  put  the  thought  into  words,  to  take 
what  he  wanted,  escaping  at  the  same  time  the  price 
which  nature  exacts  of  those  who  have  not  learned 
to  relinquish.  Out  of  the  strange  colourless  still 
ness  which  surrounded  her,  some  old  words  of 
Susan's  floated  back  to  her  as  if  they  were  spoken 
aloud:  "A  Treadwell  will  always  get  the  thing  he 
wants  most  in  the  end."  But  while  he  stabbed  her, 
he  would  look  away  in  order  that  he  might  be  spared 
the  memory  of  her  face. 

Without  a  word,  she  followed  her  bags  from  the 
room  without  a  word  she  entered  the  elevator,  which 
was  waiting,  and  without  a  word  she  took  her  place  in 


494  VIRGINIA 

the  taxicab  standing  beside  the  curbstone.  There  was 
no  rebellion  in  her  thoughts,  merely  a  dulled  conscious 
ness  of  pain,  like  the  consciousness  of  one  who  is 
partially  under  an  anaesthetic.  The  fighting  courage, 
the  violence  of  revolt,  had  no  part  in  her  soul,  which 
had  been  taught  to  suffer  and  to  renounce  with  dignity, 
not  with  heroics.  Her  submission  was  the  submission 
of  a  flower  that  bends  to  a  storm. 

As  she  sat  there  in  silence,  with  her  eyes  on  the 
brilliant  street,  where  the  signs  of  his  play  stared 
back  at  her  under  the  flaring  lights,  she  began  to 
think  with  automatic  precision,  as  though  her  brain 
were  moved  by  some  mechanical  power  over  which 
she  had  no  control.  Little  things  crowded  into  her 
mind  —  the  face  of  the  doll  she  had  bought  for  Lucy's 
stepchild  that  morning,  the  words  on  one  of  the 
electric  signs  on  the  top  of  a  building  they  were  passing, 
the  leopard  skin  coat  worn  by  a  woman  on  the  pave 
ment.  And  these  little  things  seemed  to  her  at  the 
moment  to  be  more  real,  more  vital,  than  her  broken 
heart  and  the  knowledge  that  she  was  parting  from 
Oliver.  The  agony  of  the  night  and  the  morning  ap 
peared  to  have  passed  away  like  a  physical  pang, 
leaving  only  this  deadness  of  sensation  and  the  strange, 
almost  unearthly  clearness  of  external  objects.  "It 
is  not  new.  It  has  been  coming  on  for  years,"  she 
thought.  "He  said  that,  and  it  is  true.  It  is  so  old 
that  it  has  been  here  forever,  and  I  seem  to  have  been 
suffering  it  all  my  life  —  since  the  day  I  was  born,  and 
before  the  day  I  was  born.  It  seems  older  than  I 
am.  Oliver  is  going  from  me.  He  has  always  been 
going  from  me  —  always  since  the  beginning,"  she 
repeated  slowly,  as  if  she  were  trying  to  learn  a  lesson 


BITTERNESS  495 

by  heart.  But  so  remote  and  shadowy  did  the  words 
appear,  that  she  found  herself  thinking  the  next 
instant,  "I  must  have  forgotten  my  smelling-salts. 
The  bottle  was  lying  on  the  bureau,  and  I  can't 
remember  putting  it  into  my  bag."  The  image  of 
this  little  glass  bottle,  with  the  gold  top,  which  she 
had  left  behind  was  distinct  in  her  memory;  but  when 
she  tried  to  think  of  the  parting  from  Oliver  and  of 
all  that  she  was  suffering,  everything  became  shadowy 
and  unreal  again. 

At  the  station  she  stood  beside  the  porter  while  he 
paid  the  driver,  and  then  entering  the  doorway, 
they  walked  hurriedly,  so  hurriedly  that  she  felt  as 
if  she  were  losing  her  breath,  in  the  direction  of  the 
gate  and  the  waiting  train.  And  with  each  step,  as 
they  passed  down  the  long  platform,  which  seemed  to 
stretch  into  eternity,  she  was  thinking:  "In  a  minute 
it  will  be  over.  If  I  don't  say  something  now,  it  will 
be  too  late.  If  I  don't  stop  him  now,  it  will  be  over 
forever  —  everything  will  be  over  forever." 

Beside  the  night  coach,  in  the  presence  of  the  con 
ductor  and  the  porter,  who  stood  blandly  waiting 
to  help  her  into  the  train,  she  stopped  suddenly,  as 
though  she  could  not  go  any  farther,  as  though  the 
strength  which  had  supported  her  until  now  had 
given  way  and  she  were  going  to  fall.  Through  her 
mind  there  flashed  the  thought  that  even  now  she 
might  hold  him  if  she  were  to  make  a  scene,  that  if 
she  were  to  go  into  hysterics  he  would  not  leave  her, 
that  if  she  were  to  throw  away  her  pride  and  her  self- 
respect  and  her  dignity,  she  might  recover  by  violence 
the  outer  shell  at  least  of  her  happiness.  How  could 
he  break  away  from  her  if  she  were  only  to  weep  and 


496  VIRGINIA 

to  cling  to  him?  Then,  while  the  idea  was  still  in 
her  mind,  she  knew  that  to  a  nature  such  as  hers  vio 
lence  was  impossible.  It  took  passion  to  war  with 
passion,  and  in  this  she  was  lacking.  Though  she 
were  wounded  to  the  death,  she  could  not  revolt, 
could  not  shriek  out  in  her  agony,  could  not  break 
through  that  gentle  yet  invincible  reticence  which 
she  had  won  from  the  past. 

Down  the  long  platform  a  child  came  running  with 
cries  of  pleasure,  followed  by  a  man  with  a  red  beard, 
who  carried  a  suitcase.  As  they  approached  the 
train,  Virginia  entered  the  coach,  and  walked  rapidly 
down  the  aisle  to  where  the  porter  was  waiting  beside 
her  seat. 

For  the  first  time  since  they  had  reached  the  station 
Oliver  spoke.  "I  am  sorry  I  couldn't  get  the  drawing- 
room  for  you,"  he  said.  "I  am  afraid  you  will  be 
crowded";  and  this  anxiety  about  her  comfort,  when 
he  was  ruining  her  life,  did  not  strike  either  of  them, 
at  the  moment,  as  ridiculous. 

"It  does  not  matter,"  she  answered;  and  he  put  out 
his  hand. 

"Good-bye,  Virginia,"  he  said,  with  a  catch  in 
his  voice. 

"Good-bye,"  she  responded  quietly,  and  would  have 
given  her  soul  for  the  power  to  shriek  aloud,  to  over 
come  this  indomitable  instinct  which  was  stronger 
than  her  personal  self. 

Turning  away,  he  passed  between  the  seats  to  the 
door  of  the  coach,  and  a  minute  later  she  saw  his 
figure  hurrying  back  along  the  platform  down  which 
they  had  come  together  a  few  minutes  ago. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   FUTURE 

A  CHILL  rain  was  falling  when  Virginia  got  out  of  the 
train  the  next  morning,  and  the  raw-boned  nags  hitched 
to  the  ancient  "hacks"  in  the  street  appeared  even 
more  dejected  and  forlorn  than  she  had  remembered 
them.  Then  one  of  the  noisy  negro  drivers  seized 
her  bag,  and  a  little  later  she  was  rolling  up  the  long 
hill  in  the  direction  of  her  home.  Dinwiddie  was  the 
same;  nothing  had  altered  there  since  she  had  left  it  — 
and  yet  what  a  difference!  The  same  shops  were 
unclosing  their  shutters;  the  same  crippled  negro 
beggar  was  taking  his  place  at  the  corner  of  the 
market;  the  same  maids  were  sweeping  the  sidewalks 
with  the  same  brooms;  the  same  clerk  bowed  to  her 
from  the  drug  store  where  she  bought  her  medicines; 
and  yet  something  —  the  only  thing  which  had  ever 
interested  her  in  these  people  and  this  place  —  had 
passed  out  of  them.  Just  as  in  New  York  yesterday, 
when  she  had  watched  the  sunrise,  so  it  seemed  to  her 
now  that  the  spirit  of  reality  had  faded  out  of  the 
world.  What  remained  was  merely  a  mirage  in  which 
phantoms  in  the  guise  of  persons  made  a  pretence  of 
being  alive. 

The  front  door  of  her  house  stood  open,  and  on  the 
porch  one  of  the  coloured  maids  was  beating  the 
dust  out  of  the  straw  mat.  "As  if  dust  makes  any 

497 


498  VIRGINIA 

difference  when  one  is  dead,"  Virginia  thought  wearily; 
and  an  unutterable  loathing  passed  over  her  for  all 
the  little  acts  by  which  one  rendered  tribute  to  the 
tyranny  of  appearances.  Then,  as  she  entered  the 
house,  she  felt  that  the  sight  of  the  familiar  objects 
she  had  once  loved  oppressed  her  as  though  the  spirit 
of  melancholy  resided  in  the  pieces  of  furniture,  not 
in  her  soul.  This  weariness,  so  much  worse  than  posi 
tive  pain,  filled  her  with  disgust  for  all  the  associations 
and  the  sentiments  she  had  known  in  the  past.  Not 
only  the  house  and  the  furniture  and  the  small  details 
of  housekeeping,  but  the  street  and  the  town  and 
every  friendly  face  of  a  neighbour,  had  become  an 
intolerable  reminder  that  she  was  still  alive. 

In  her  room,  where  a  bright  fire  was  burning,  and 
letters  from  the  girls  lay  on  the  table,  she  sat  down 
in  her  wraps  and  gazed  with  unseeing  eyes  at  the 
flames.  "The  children  must  not  know.  I  must  keep 
it  from  the  children  as  long  as  possible,"  she  thought 
dully,  and  it  was  so  natural  to  her  to  plan  sparing 
them,  that  for  a  minute  the  idea  took  her  mind  away 
from  her  own  anguish.  "If  I  could  only  die  like  this, 
then  they  need  never  know,"  she  found  herself  reflecting 
coldly  a  little  later,  so  coldly  that  she  seemed  to  have 
no  personal  interest,  no  will  to  choose  in  the  matter. 
"If  I  could  only  die  like  this,  nobody  need  be  hurt  - 
except  Harry,"  she  added. 

For  the  first  time,  with  the  thought  of  Harry,  her 
restraint  suddenly  failed  her.  "Yes,  it  would  hurt 
Harry.  I  must  live  because  Harry  would  want  me  to," 
she  said  aloud;  and  as  though  her  strength  were 
reinforced  by  the  words,  she  rose  and  prepared  herself 
to  go  downstairs  to  breakfast  —  prepared  herself,  too, 


THE  FUTURE  499 

for  the  innumerable  little  agonies  which  would  come 
with  the  day,  for  the  sight  of  Susan,  for  the  visits  from 
the  neighbours,  for  the  eager  questions  about  the 
fashions  in  New  York  which  Miss  Willy  would  ask. 
And  all  the  time  she  was  thinking  clearly,  "It  can't 
last  forever.  It  must  end  some  time.  Who  knows 
but  it  may  stop  the  next  minute,  and  one  can  stand 
a  minute  of  anything." 

The  day  passed,  the  week,  the  month,  and  gradually 
the  spring  came  and  went,  awakening  life  in  the  trees,  in 
the  grass,  in  the  fields,  but  not  in  her  heart.  Even  the 
dried  sticks  in  the  yard  put  out  shoots  of  living  green 
and  presently  bore  blossoms,  and  in  the  borders  by 
the  front  gate,  the  crocuses,  which  she  had  planted 
with  her  own  hands  a  year  ago,  were  ablaze  with 
gold.  All  nature  seemed  joining  in  the  resurrection 
of  life,  all  nature,  except  herself,  seemed  to  flower 
again  to  fulfilment.  She  alone  was  dead,  and  she  alone 
among  the  dead  must  keep  up  this  pretence  of  living 
which  was  so  much  harder  than  death. 

Once  every  week  she  wrote  to  the  children,  restrained 
yet  gently  flowing  letters  in  which  there  was  no  men 
tion  of  Oliver.  It  had  been  so  long,  indeed,  since 
either  Harry  or  the  girls  had  associated  their  parents 
together,  that  the  omission  called  forth  no  question, 
hardly,  she  gathered,  any  surprise.  Their  lives  were 
so  full,  their  interests  were  so  varied,  that,  except 
at  the  regular  intervals  when  they  sat  down  to  write 
to  her,  it  is  doubtful  if  they  ever  seriously  won 
dered  about  her.  In  July,  Jenny  came  home  for  a 
month,  and  Lucy  wrote  regretfully  that  she  was  "so 
disappointed  that  she  couldn't  join  mother  somewhere 
in  the  mountains";  but  beyond  this,  the  girls'  lives 


500  VIRGINIA 

hardly  appeared  to  touch  hers  even  on  the  surface. 
In  the  month  that  Jenny  spent  in  Dinwiddie,  she 
organized  a  number  of  societies  and  clubs  for  the 
improvement  of  conditions  among  working  girls,  and  in 
spite  of  the  intense  heat  (the  hottest  spell  of  the 
summer  came  while  she  was  there),  she  barely  allowed 
herself  a  minute  for  rest  or  for  conversation  with  her 
mother. 

"If  you  would  only  go  to  the  mountains,  mother," 
she  remarked  the  evening  before  she  left.  "I  am  sure 
it  isn't  good  for  you  to  stay  in  Dinwiddie  during  the 


summer." 


"I  am  used  to  it,"  replied  Virginia  a  little  stubbornly, 
for  it  seemed  to  her  at  the  moment  that  she  would 
rather  die  than  move. 

"But  you  ought  to  think  of  your  health.  What 
does  father  say  about  it?" 

A  contraction  of  pain  crossed  Virginia's  face,  but 
Jenny,  whose  vision  was  so  wide  that  it  had  a  way  of 
overlooking  things  which  were  close  at  hand,  did  not 
observe  it. 

"He  hasn't  said  anything,"  she  answered,  with  a 
strange  stillness  of  voice. 

"I  thought  he  meant  to  take  you  to  England,  but 
I  suppose  his  plays  are  keeping  him  in  New  York." 

Rising  from  her  chair  at  the  table  —  they  had  just 
finished  supper  —  Virginia  reached  for  a  saucer  and 
filled  it  with  ice  cream  from  a  bowl  in  front  of  her. 

"I  think  I'll  send  Miss  Priscilla  a  little  of  this 
cream,"  she  remarked.  "  She  is  so  fond  of  strawberry." 

The  next  day  Jenny  went,  and  again  the  silence 
and  the  loneliness  settled  upon  the  house,  to  which 
Virginia  clung  with  a  morbid  terror  of  change.  Had 


THE  FUTURE  501 

her  spirit  been  less  broken,  she  might   have   made 
the  effort  of  going  North  as  Jenny  had  urged  her  to 
do,  but  when  her  life   was    over,   one   place   seemed 
as  desirable  as  another,  and  it  was  a  matter  of  pro 
found    indifference    to   her   whether   it    was  heat   or 
cold  which  afflicted  her  body.     She  was  probably  the 
only   person   in   Dinwiddie   who   did    not    hang    out 
of  her  window  during  the  long  nights  in  search  of  a 
passing  breeze.     But  with  that  physical  insensibility 
which  accompanies  prolonged  torture  of  soul,  she  had 
ceased  to  feel  the  heat,  had  ceased  even  to  feel  the 
old  neuralgic  pain  in  her  temples.     There  were  times 
when  it  seemed  to  her  that  if  a  pin  were  stuck  into 
her  body  she  should  not  know  it.     The  one  thing 
she  asked  —  and  this  Life  granted  her  except  during 
the  four  weeks  of  Jenny's  visit  —  was  freedom  from 
the  need  of  exertion,  freedom  from  the  obligation  to 
make  decisions.     Her  housekeeping  she  left  now  to 
the   servants,   so  she  was  spared  the  daily  harassing 
choices    of    the    market    and    the    table.      There  re 
mained  nothing  for  her  to  do,  nothing  even  for  her 
to    worry    about,    except    her    broken    heart.      Her 
friends  she  had  avoided  ever  since  her  return  from 
New  York,  partly  from  an  unbearable  shrinking  from 
the  questions  which  she  knew  they  would  ask  whenever 
they  met  her,  partly  because  her  mind  was  so  en 
grossed  with  the  supreme  fact  that  her  universe  lay 
in  ruins,  that  she  found  it  impossible  to  lend  a  casual 
interest  to  other  matters.     She,  who  had  effaced  her 
self  for  a  lifetime,  found  suddenly  that  she  could  not 
see  beyond  the  immediate  presence  of  her  own  suffering. 
Usually    she    stayed    closely    indoors    through    the 
summer  days,  but  several  times,  at  the  hour  of  dusk, 


502  VIRGINIA 

she  went  out  alone  and  wandered  for  hours  about 
the  streets  which  were  associated  with  her  girlhood. 
In  High  Street,  at  the  corner  where  she  had  first  seen 
Oliver,  she  stood  one  evening  until  Miss  Priscilla, 
who  had  caught  sight  of  her  from  the  porch  of  the 
Academy  (which,  owing  to  the  changing  fashions  in 
education  and  the  infirmities  of  the  teacher,  was  the 
Academy  no  longer),  sent  out  her  negro  maid  to  beg 
her  to  come  in  and  sit  with  her.  "No,  I'm  only  looking 
for  something,"  Virginia  had  answered,  while  she 
hurried  back  past  the  church  and  down  the  slanting 
street  to  the  twelve  stone  steps  which  led  up  the 
terraced  hillside  at  the  rectory.  Here,  in  the  purple 
summer  twilight,  spangled  with  fireflies,  she  felt  for 
a  minute  that  her  youth  was  awaiting  her;  and  opening 
the  gate,  she  passed  as  softly  as  a  ghost  along  the 
crooked  path  to  the  two  great  paulownias,  which  were 
beginning  to  decay,  and  to  the  honeysuckle  arbour, 
where  the  tendrils  of  the  creeper  brushed  her  hair  like 
a  caress.  Under  the  light  of  a  young  moon,  it  seemed 
to  her  that  nothing  had  changed  since  that  spring 
evening  when  she  had  stood  there  and  felt  the  wonder 
of  first  love  awake  in  her  heart.  Nothing  had  changed 
except  that  love  and  herself.  The  paulownias  still 
shed  their  mysterious  shadows  about  her,  the  red 
and  white  roses  still  bloomed  by  the  west  wing  of  the 
house,  the  bed  of  mint  still  grew,  rank  and  fragrant, 
beneath  the  dining-room  window.  When  she  put  her 
hand  on  the  bole  of  the  tree  beside  which  she  stood, 
she  could  still  feel  the  initials  V.  O.  which  Oliver  had 
cut  there  in  the  days  before  their  marriage.  A  light 
burned  in  the  window  of  the  room  which  had  been 
the  parlour  in  the  days  when  she  lived  there,  and  as  she 


THE  FUTURE  503 

gazed  at  it,  she  almost  expected  to  see  the  face  of 
her  mother,  with  its  look  of  pathetic  cheerfulness, 
smiling  at  her  through  the  small  greenish  panes.  And 
then  the  past  in  which  Oliver  had  no  part,  the  past 
which  belonged  to  her  and  to  her  parents,  that  hal 
lowed,  unforgettable  past  of  her  childhood,  which 
seemed  bathed  in  love  as  in  a  flood  of  light  —  this 
past  enveloped  her  as  the  magic  of  the  moon 
beams  enveloped  [the  house  in  which  she  had  lived. 
While  she^  stood  there,  it  was  more  living  than 
the  present,  more  real  than  the  aching  misery  in  her 
heart. 

The  door  of  the  house  opened  and  shut;  she  heard 
a  step  on  the  gravelled  path;  and  bending  forward  out 
of  the  shadow,  she  waited  breathlessly  for  the  sound 
of  her  father's  voice.  But  it  was  a  young  rector,  who 
had  recently  accepted  the  call  to  Saint  James'  Church, 
and  his  boyish  face,  rising  out  of  the  sacred  past, 
awoke  her  with  a  shock  from  the  dream  into  which 
she  had  fallen. 

"Good-evening,  Mrs.  Tread  well.  Were  you  coming 
to  see  me?"  he  asked  eagerly,  pleased,  she  could  see, 
by  the  idea  that  she  was  seeking  his  services. 

"No,  I  was  passing,  and  the  garden  reminded  me 
so  of  my  girlhood  that  I  came  in  for  a  minute." 

"It  hasn't  changed  much,  I  suppose?"  His  alert, 
business-like  gaze  swept  the  hillside. 

"Hardly  at  all.  One  might  imagine  that  those  were 
the  same  roses  I  left  here." 

"An  improvement  or  two  wouldn't  hurt  it,"  he 
remarked  with  animation.  "These  old  trees  make 
such  a  litter  in  the  spring  that  my  wife  is  anxious  to 
get  them  down.  Women  like  tidiness,  you  know,  and 


504  VIRGINIA 

she  says,  while  they  are  blooming,  it  is  impossible  to 
keep  the  yard  clean." 

"I  remember.  Their  flowers  cover  everything  when 
they  fall,  but  I  always  loved  them." 

"Well,  one  does  get  attached  to  things.  I  hope 
you  have  had  a  pleasant  summer  in  spite  of  the  heat. 
It  must  have  been  a  delight  to  have  your  daughter 
at  home  again.  What  a  splendid  worker  she  is.  If 
we  had  her  in  Dinwiddie  for  good  it  wouldn't  be  long 
before  the  old  town  would  awaken.  Why,  I'd  been 
trying  to  get  those  girls'  clubs  started  for  a  year,  and 
she  took  the  job  out  of  my  hands  and  managed  it  in 
two  weeks." 

"The  dear  child  is  very  clever.  Is  your  wife  still 
in  the  mountains?" 

"She's  coming  back  next  week.  We  didn't  feel 
that  it  was  safe  to  bring  the  baby  home  until  that 
long  spell  of  heat  had  broken."  Then,  as  she  turned 
towards  the  step,  he  added  hastily,  "Won't  you  let 
me  walk  home  with  you?" 

But  this,  she  felt,  was  more  than  she  could  bear,  and 
making  the  excuse  of  an  errand  on  the  next  block,  she 
parted  from  him  at  the  gate,  and  hurried  like  a  shadow 
back  along  High  Street. 

Until  October  there  was  no  word  from  Oliver,  and 
then  at  last  there  came  a  letter,  which  she  threw, 
half  read,  into  the  fire.  The  impulsive  act,  so  unlike 
the  normal  Virginia,  soothed  her  for  an  instant,  and 
she  said  over  and  over  to  herself,  while  she  moved 
hurriedly  about  the  room,  as  though  she  were  seeking 
an  escape  from  the  moment  before  her,  "I'm  glad  I 
didn't  finish  it.  I'm  glad  I  let  it  burn."  Though  she 
did  not  realize  it,  this  passionate  refusal  to  look  at 


THE  FUTURE  505 

or  to  touch  the  thing  that  she  hated    was   the  last 
stand  of  the  Pendleton  idealism  against  the  triumph  of 
the  actuality.     It  is  possible  that  until  that  moment 
she  had  felt  far  down  in  her  soul  that  by  declining  to 
acknowledge  in  words  the  fact  of  Oliver's  desertion, 
by  hiding  it  from  the  children,  by  ignoring  the  proc 
esses  which  would  lead  to  his  freedom,  she  had,  in 
some  obscure  way,  deprived  that  fact  of  all  power  over 
her  life.     But  now  while  his  letter,  blaming  himself 
and  yet  pleading  with  her  for  his  liberty,  lay  there, 
crumbling  slowly  to  ashes,  under  her  eyes,  her  whole 
life,  with  its  pathos,  its  subterfuge,  its  losing  battle 
against  the  ruling  spirit  of  change,  seemed  crumbling 
there  also,  like  those  ashes,  or  like  that  vanished  past 
to  which  she  belonged.     "I'm  glad  I  let  it  burn,"  she 
repeated  bitterly,  and  yet  she  knew  that  the  words 
had  never  really  burned,    that   the  flame   which  was 
consuming  them  would  never  die  until  she  lay  in  her 
coffin.     Stopping  in  front  of  the  fire,  she  stood  looking 
down  on  the  last  shred  of  the  letter,  as  though  it  were 
in  reality  the  ruins  of  her  life  which  she  was  watching. 
A  dull  wonder  stirred  in  her  mind  amid  her  suffering  — 
a  vague  questioning  as  to  why  this  thing,  of  all  things, 
should  have  happened?     "If  I  could  only  know  why 
it   was  —  if   I   could    only   understand,    it    might   be 
easier,"  she  thought.     "But  I  tried  so  hard  to  do  what 
was  right,   and,   whatever  the  fault  was,   at  least  I 
never  failed  in  love.     I  never  failed  in  love,"  she  re 
peated.     Her   gaze,    leaving   the   fire,    rested   for    an 
instant  on  a  little  alabaster  ash-tray  which  stood  on 
the  end  of  the  table,  and  a  spasm  crossed  her  face, 
which  had  remained  unmoved  while  she  was  reading 
his  letter.     Every  object  in  the  room  seemed  suddenly 


506  VIRGINIA 

alive  with  memories.  That  was  his  place  on  the 
rug;  the  deep  chintz-covered  chair  by  the  hearth  was 
the  one  in  which  he  used  to  sit,  watching  the  fire  at 
night,  before  going  to  bed;  the  clock  on  the  mantel 
was  the  one  he  had  selected;  the  rug,  which  was  thread 
bare  in  places,  he  had  helped  her  to  choose;  the  pile 
of  English  reviews  on  the  table  he  had  subscribed  to; 
the  little  glass  water  bottle  on  the  candle-stand  by  the 
bed,  she  had  bought  years  ago  because  he  liked  to 
drink  in  the  night.  There  was  nothing  in  which  he 
did  not  have  a  part.  Every  trivial  incident  of  her 
life  was  bound  up  with  the  thought  of  him.  She 
could  no  more  escape  the  torment  of  these  associations 
than  she  could  escape  the  fact  of  herself.  For  so  long 
she  had  been  one  with  him  in  her  thoughts  that  their 
relationship  had  passed,  for  her,  into  that  profound 
union  of  habit  which  is  the  strongest  union  of  all. 
Even  the  years  in  which  he  had  grown  gradually  away 
from  her  had  appeared  to  her  to  leave  untouched  the 
deeper  sanctities  of  their  marriage. 

A  knock  came  at  the  door,  and  the  cook,  with  a 
list  of  groceries  in  her  hand,  entered  to  inquire  if  her 
mistress  were  going  to  market.  With  the  beginning 
of  the  autumn  Virginia  had  tried  to  take  an  interest 
in  her  housekeeping  again,  and  the  daily  trip  to  the 
market  had  relieved,  in  a  measure,  the  terrible  vacancy 
of  her  mornings.  Now  it  seemed  to  her  that  the 
remorseless  exactions  of  the  material  details  of  living 
offered  the  only  escape  from  the  tortures  of  memory. 
"Yes,  I'll  go,"  she  said,  reaching  out  her  hand  for  the 
list,  and  her  heart  cried,  "I  cannot  live  if  I  stay  in 
this  room  any  longer.  I  cannot  live  if  I  look  at  these 
things."  As  she  turned  away  to  put  on  her  hat,  she 


THE  FUTURE  507 

was  seized  by  a  superstitious  feeling  that  she  might  es 
cape  her   suffering  by  fleeing  from   these  inanimate 
reminders   of  her   marriage.     It   was   as   though   the 
chair  and  the  rug  and  the  clock  had  become  possessed 
with  some  demoniacal  spirit.     "If  I  can  only  get  out 
of  doors  I  shall  feel  better,"  she  insisted;  and  when 
she  had  hurriedly  pinned  on  her  hat  and  tied  her  tulle 
ruff  at  her  throat,  she  caught  up  her  gloves  and  ran 
quickly   down   the   stairs   and    out    into    the    street. 
But  as  soon  as  she  had  reached  the  sidewalk,  the  agony, 
which  she  had  thought  she  was  leaving  behind  her  in 
the  closed  room  upstairs,  rushed  over  her  in  a  wave 
of  realization,  and  turning  again,  she  started  back  into 
the  yard,   and   stopped,    with   a   sensation   of   panic, 
beside  the  bed  of  crimson  dahlias  at  the  foot  of  the 
steps.     Then,  while  she  hesitated,  uncertain  whether 
to  return  to  her  bedroom  or  to  force  herself  to  go  on 
to  the  market,  those  hated  familiar  objects  flashed  in 
a  blaze  of  light  through  her  mind,  and,  opening  the 
gate,  she  passed  out  on  the  sidewalk,  and  started  at 
a  rapid  step  down  the  deserted  pavement  of  Sycamore 
Street.     "At   least   nobody   will   speak   to   me,"    she 
thought;    but  while  the  words  were  still  on   her   lips, 
she  saw  a  door  in  the  block  open  wide,  and  one  of  her 
neighbours    come    out    on   his    way   to   his    business. 
Turning  hastily,  she  fled  into  a  cross  street,  and  then 
gathering  courage,   went  on,  trembling  in  every  limb, 
towards  the  old  market,  which  she  used  because  her 
mother  and  her  grandmother  had  used  it  before  her. 
The  fish-carts  were  still  there  just  as  they  had  been 
when  she  was  a  girl,   but  the  army  of  black-robed 
housekeepers  had  changed  or  melted  away.     Here,  also, 
the  physical  details  of  life  had  survived  the  beings 


508  VIRGINIA 

for  whose  use  or  comfort  they  had  come  into  existence. 
The  meat  and  the  vegetable  stalls  were  standing  in 
orderly  rows  about  the  octagonal  building;  wilted 
cabbage  leaves  littered  the  dusty  floor;  flies  swarmed 
around  the  bleeding  forms  hanging  from  hooks  in  the 
sunshine;  even  Mr.  Dewlap,  hale  and  red-cheeked, 
offered  her  white  pullets  out  of  the  wooden  coop  at  his 
feet.  So  little  had  the  physical  scene  changed  since 
the  morning,  more  than  twenty-five  years  ago,  of  her 
meeting  with  Oliver,  that  while  she  paused  there 
beside  Mr.  Dewlap's  stall,  one  of  the  older  generation 
might  have  mistaken  her  for  her  mother. 

"My  dear  Virginia,"  said  a  voice  at  her  back,  and, 
turning,  she  found  Mrs.  Peachey,  a  trifle  rheumatic, 
but  still  plump  and  "pretty.  "I'm  so  glad  you  come  to 
the  old  market,  my  child.  I  suppose  you  cling  to  it 
because  of  your  mother,  and  then  things  are  really 
so  much  dearer  uptown,  don't  you  think  so?" 

"Yes,  I  dare  say  they  are,  but  I've  got  into  the 
habit  of  coming  here." 

"One  does  get  into  habits.  Now  I've  bought 
chickens  from  Mr.  Dewlap  for  forty  years.  I  remem 
ber  your  mother  and  I  used  to  say  that  there  were 
no  chickens  to  compare  with  his  white  pullets." 

"I  remember.  Mother  was  a  wonderful  housekeeper." 

"And  you  are  too,  my  dear.  Everybody  says  that 
you  have  the  best  table  in  Dinwiddie!"  Her  small 
rosy  face,  framed  in  the  shirred  brim  of  her  black  silk 
bonnet,  was  wrinkled  with  age,  but  even  her  wrinkles 
were  cheerful  ones,  and  detracted  nothing  from  the 
charming  archness  of  her  expression.  Unconquerable 
still,  she  went  her  sprightly  way,  on  rheumatic  limbs, 
towards  the  grave. 


THE  FUTURE  509 

"Have  you  seen  dear  Miss  Priscilla?"  asked  Vir 
ginia,  striving  to  turn  the  conversation  away  from 
herself,  and  shivering  with  terror  lest  the  other  should 
ask  after  Oliver,  whom  she  had  always  adored. 

"I  stopped  to  inquire  about  her  on  my  way  down.  She 
had  had  a  bad  night,  the  maid  said,  and  Doctor 
Fraser  is  afraid  that  the  cold  she  got  when  she  went 
driving  the  other  day  has  settled  upon  her  lungs." 

"Oh,  I  am  so  sorry!"  exclaimed  Virginia,  but  she 
was  conscious  of  an  immeasurable  relief  because 
Miss  Priscilla's  illness  was  absorbing  Mrs.  Peachey's 
thoughts 

"Well,  I  must  be  going  on,"  said  the  little  lady, 
and  though  she  flinched  with  pain  when  she  moved, 
the  habitual  cheerfulness  of  her  face  did  not  alter. 
"Come  to  see  me  as  often  as  you  can,  Jinny.  I 
can't  get  about  much  now,  and  it  is  such  a  pleasure 
for  me  to  have  somebody  to  chat  with.  People  don't 
visit  now,"  she  added  regretfully,  "as  much  as  they 
used  to." 

"So  many  things  have  changed,"  said  Virginia,  and 
her  eyes,  as  she  gazed  up  at  the  blue  sky  over  the 
market,  had  a  yearning  look  in  them.  So  many  things 
had  changed  —  ah,  there  was  the  pang! 

On  her  way  home,  overcome  by  the  fear  that  Miss 
Priscilla  might  die  thinking  herself  neglected,  Virginia 
stopped  at  the  Academy,  and  was  shown  into  the 
chamber  behind  the  parlour,  which  had  once  been  a 
classroom.  In  the  middle  of  her  big  tester  bed,  the 
teacher  was  lying,  propped  among  pillows,  with  her 
cameo  brooch  fastening  the  collar  of  her  nightgown  and 
a  purple  wool  shawl,  which  Virginia  had  knit  for  her, 
thrown  over  her  shoulders. 


510  VIRGINIA 

"Dear  Miss  Priscilla,  I've  thought  of  you  so  often. 
Are  you  better  to-day?" 

"A  little,  Jinny,  but  don't  worry  about  me.  I'll 
be  out  of  bed  in  a  day  or  two."  Though  she  was  well 
over  eighty-five,  she  still  thought  of  herself  as  a  middle- 
aged  woman,  and  her  constant  plans  for  the  future 
amazed  Virginia,  whose  hold  upon  life  was  so  much 
slighter,  so  much  less  tenacious.  "Have  you  been  to 
market,  dear?  I  miss  so  being  able  to  sit  by  the 
window  and  watch  people  go  by.  Then  I  always 
knew  when  you  and  Susan  were  on  your  way  to  Mr. 
Dewlap." 

"Yes,  I've  begun  to  go  again.     It  fills  in  the  day." 

"I  never  approved  of  your  letting  your  servants 
market  for  you,  Jinny.  It  would  have  shocked  your 
mother  dreadfully." 

"I  know,"  said  Virginia,  and  her  voice,  in  spite 
of  her  effort  to  speak  cheerfully,  had  a  weary  sound, 
which  made  her  add  with  sudden  energy,  "I've  brought 
you  a  partridge.  Mr.  Dewlap  had  such  nice  ones. 
You  must  try  to  eat  it  for  supper." 

"How  like  you  that  was,  Jinny.  You  are  your 
mother  all  over  again.  I  declare  I  am  reminded  of  her 
more  and  more  every  time  that  I  see  you." 

Tears  sprang  to  Virginia's  eyes,  while  her  thin  blue- 
veined  hands  gently  caressed  Miss  Priscilla's  swollen 
and  knotted  fingers. 

"You  couldn't  tell  me  anything  that  would  please 
me  more,"  she  answered. 

"I  used  to  think  that  Lucy  would  take  after  her, 
but  she  grew  up  differently." 

"Yes,  neither  of  the  girls  is  like  her.  They  are  dear, 
good  children,  but  they  are  very  modern," 


THE  FUTURE  511 

"Have  you  heard  from  them  recently?" 
"A  few  days  ago,  and  they  are  both  as  well  as  can 
be." 

"And   what   about   Harry?     I've   always   believed 
that  Harry  was  your  favourite,  Jinny." 

For  an  instant  Virginia  hesitated,  with  her  eyes 
on  the  pot  of  red  geraniums  blooming  between  the 
white  muslin  curtains  at  the  window.  In  his  little 
cage  in  the  sunlight,  Miss  Priscilla's  canary,  the  last  of 
many  generations  of  Dickys,  burst  suddenly  into  song. 
"I  believe  that  Harry  loves  me  more  than  anybody 
else  in  the  world  does,"  she  answered  at  last.  "He'd 
come  to  me  to-morrow  if  he  thought  I  needed  him." 

Lying  there  in  her  great  white  bed,  with  her  enormous 
body,  which  she  could  no  longer  turn,  rising  in  a 
mountain  of  flesh  under  the  linen  sheet,  the  old  teacher 
closed  her  eyes  lest  Virginia  should  see  her  soul  yearning 
over  her  as  it  had  yearned  over  Lucy  Pendleton  after 
the  rector's  death.  She  thought  of  the  girl,  with  the 
flower-like  eyes  and  the  braided  wreath  of  hair,  flitting 
in  white  organdie  and  blue  ribbons,  under  the  dappled 
sunlight  in  High  Street,  and  she  said  to  herself,  as  she 
had  said  twenty-five  years  ago,  "If  there  was  ever  a 
girl  who  looked  as  if  she  were  cut  out  for  happiness, 
it  was  Jinny  Pendleton." 

"They  say  that  Abby  Goode  is  going  to  be  married 
at  last,"  remarked  Virginia  abruptly,  for  she  knew 
that  such  bits  of  gossip  supplied  the  only  pleasant 
excitement  in  Miss  Priscilla's  life. 

"Well,  it's  time.  She  waited  long  enough,"  returned 
the  teacher,  and  she  added,  "I  always  knew  that  she 
was  crazy  about  Oliver  by  the  way  she  flung  herself 
at  his  head,"  She  had  never  liked  Abby,  and  her 


512  VIRGINIA 

prejudices,  which  had  survived  the  shocks  of  life,  were 
not  weakened  by  the  approaching  presence  of  Death. 
It  was  characteristic  of  her  that  she  should  pass  into 
eternity  with  both  her  love  and  her  scorn  undiminished. 
"She  was  a  little  boisterous  as  a  girl,  but  I  never 
believed  any  harm  of  her,"  answered  Virginia  mildly; 
and  then  as  Miss  Priscilla's  lunch  was  brought  in  on 
a  tray,  she  kissed  her  tenderly,  with  a  curious  feeling 
that  it  was  for  the  last  time,  and  went  out  of  the  door 
and  down  the  gravelled  walk  into  High  Street.  An 
exhaustion  greater  than  any  she  had  ever  known 
oppressed  her  as  she  dragged  her  body,  which  felt 
dead,  through  the  glorious  October  weather.  Once, 
when  she  passed  Saint  James'  Church,  she  thought 
wearily,  "How  sorry  mother  would  be  if  she  knew," 
while  an  intolerable  pain,  which  seemed  her  mother's 
pain  as  well  as  her  own,  pierced  her  heart.  Then,  as 
she  hurried  on,  with  that  nervous  haste  which  she 
could  no  longer  control,  the  terrible  haunted  blocks 
appeared  to  throng  with  the  faded  ghosts  of  her  youth. 
A  grey-haired  woman  leaning  out  of  the  upper  window 
of  an  old  house  nodded  to  her  with  a  smile,  and  she 
found  herself  thinking,  "I  rolled  hoops  with  her  once 
in  the  street,  and  now  she  is  watching  her  grandchild 
go  out  in  its  carriage."  At  any  other  moment  she 
would  have  bent,  enraptured,  over  the  perambulator, 
which  was  being  wheeled,  by  a  nurse  and  a  maid, 
down  the  front  steps  into  the  street;  but  to-day  the  sight 
of  the  soft  baby  features,  lovingly  surrounded  by  lace 
and  blue  ribbons,  was  like  the  turn  of  a  knife  in  her 
wound.  "And  yet  mother  always  said  that  she  was 
never  so  happy  as  she  was  with  my  children,"  she 
reflected,  while  her  personal  suffering  was  eased  for  a 


THE  FUTURE  513 

minute  by  the  knowledge  of  what  her  return  to  Din- 
widdie  had  meant  to  her  mother.  "If  she  had  died 
while  I  lived  away,  I  could  never  have  got  over  it  — 
I  could  never  have  forgiven  myself,"  she  added,  and 
there  was  an  exquisite  relief  in  turning  even  for  an 
instant  away  from  the  thought  of  herself. 

When  she  reached  home  luncheon  was  awaiting  her; 
but  after  sitting  down  at  the  table  and  unfolding  her 
napkin,  a  sudden  nausea  seized  her,  and  she  felt  that 
it  was  impossible  to  sit  there  facing  the  mahogany 
sideboard,  with  its  gleaming  rows  of  silver,  and  watch 
the  precise,  slow-footed  movements  of  the  maid,  who 
served  her  as  she  might  have  served  a  wooden  image. 
"I  took  such  trouble  to  train  her,  and  now  it  makes  me 
sick  to  look  at  her,"  she  thought,  as  she  pushed  back 
her  chair  and  fled  hastily  from  the  room  into  Oliver's 
study  across  the  hall.     Here  her  work-bag  lay  on  the 
table,  and  taking  it  up,  she  sat  down  before  the  fire, 
and  spread  out  the  centrepiece,  which  she  was  embroid 
ering,  in  an  intricate  and  elaborate  design,  for  Lucy's 
Christmas.     It  was  almost  a  year  now  since  she  had 
started  it,  and  into  the  luxuriant  sprays  and  garlands 
there  had  passed  something  of  the  restless  love  and 
yearning  which  had  overflowed  from  her  heart.    Usually 
she  was  able  to  work  on  it  in  spite  of  her  suffering, 
for  she  was  one  of  those  whose  hands  could  accomplish 
mechanically  tasks  from  which  her  soul  had  revolted; 
but   to-day   even   her   obedient   fingers   faltered    and 
refused  to  keep  at  their  labour.     Her  eyes,  leaving  the 
needle  she  held,  wandered  beyond  the  window  to  the 
branches  of  the  young  maple  tree,  which  rose,  like  a 
pointed  flame,  toward  the  cloudless  blue  of  the  sky. 

In  the  evening,  when  Susan  came  in,  with  a  news- 


514  VIRGINIA 

paper  in  her  hand,  and  a  passionate  sympathy  in  her 
face,  Virginia  was  still  sitting  there,  gazing  at  the  dim 
outline  of  the  tree  and  the  strip  of  sky  which  had 
faded  from  azure  to  grey. 

"Oh,  Jinny,  my  darling,  you  never  told  me!" 

Taking  up  the  piece  of  embroidery  from  her  lap, 
Virginia  met  her  friend's  tearful  caress  with  a  frigid 
and  distant  manner.  "There  was  nothing  to  tell. 
What  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

"Is  —  is  it  true  that  Oliver  has  left  you?     That - 
that  —        '  Susan's  voice  broke,  strangled  by  emotion, 
but  Virginia,   without  looking  up  from  the  rose  on 
which    she    was    working   in    the    firelight,    answered 
quietly : 

"Yes,  it  is  true.     He  wants  to  be  free." 

"But  you  will  not  do  it,  darling?  The  law  is  on 
your  side." 

With  her  eyes  on  the  needle  which  she  held  carefully 
poised  for  the  next  stitch,  Virginia  hesitated  while  the 
muscles  of  her  face  quivered  for  an  instant  and  then 
grew  rigid  again. 

"What  good  would  it  do,"  she  asked,  "to  hold  him 
to  me  when  he  wishes  to  be  free?  "  And  then,  with  one 
of  those  flashes  of  insight  which  came  to  her  in  moments 
of  great  emotional  stress,  she  added  quitely,  "It  is 
not  the  law,  it  is  life." 

Putting  her  arms  around  her,  Susan  pressed  her  to  her 
bosom  as  she  might  have  pressed  a  suffering  child  whom 
she  was  powerless  to  help  or  even  to  make  understand. 

"Jinny,  Jinny,  let  me  love  you,"  she  begged. 

"How  did  you  know?"  asked  Virginia,  as  coldly  as 
though  she  had  not  heard  her.  "Has  it  got  into  the 
papers?" 


THE  FUTURE  515 

For  an  instant  Susan's  pity  struggled  against  her 
loyalty.  "General  Goode  told  me  that  there  had 
been  a  good  deal  about  Oliver  and  —  and  Miss  Old- 
castle  in  the  New  York  papers  for  several  days," 
she  answered,  "and  this  morning  a  few  lines  were 
copied  in  the  Dinwiddie  Bee.  Oliver  is  so  famous  it 
was  impossible  to  keep  things  hushed  up,  I  suppose. 
But  you  knew  all  this,  Jinny  darling." 

"Oh,  yes,  I  knew  that,"  answered  Virginia;  then, 
rising  suddenly  from  her  chair,  she  said  almost  irritably: 
"Susan,  I  want  to  be  alone.  I  can't  think  until  I 
am  alone."  By  her  look  Susan  knew  that  until  that 
minute  some  blind  hope  had  kept  alive  in  her,  some 
childish  pretence  that  it  might  all  be  a  dream,  some 
passionate  evasion  of  the  ultimate  outcome. 

"But  you'll  let  me  come  back?  You'll  let  me  spend 
the  night  with  you,  Jinny?" 

"If  you  want  to,  you  may  come.  But  I  don't 
need  you.  I  don't  need  anybody.  I  don't  need 
anybody,"  she  repeated  bitterly;  and  this  bitterness 
appeared  to  change  not  only  her  expression,  but  her 
features  and  her  carriage  and  that  essential  attribute 
of  her  being  which  had  been  the  real  Virginia. 

Awed  in  spite  of  herself,  Susan  put  on  her  hat  again, 
and  bent  over  to  kiss  her.  "I'll  be  back  before  bed 
time,  Jinny.  Don't  shut  me  away,  dear.  Let  me 
share  your  pain  with  you." 

At  this  something  that  was  like  a  smile  trembled 
for  an  instant  on  Virginia's  face. 

"You  are  good,  Susan,"  she  responded,  but  there 
was  no  tenderness,  no  gratitude  even,  in  her  voice. 
She  had  grown  hard  with  the  implacable  hardness  of 
grief. 


516:  VIRGINIA 

When  the  door  had  closed  behind  her  friend,  she 
stood  looking  through  the  window  until  she  saw 
her  pass  slowly,  as  though  she  were  reluctant  to 
go,  down  Sycamore  Street  in  the  direction  of  her 
home.  "I  am  glad  she  has  gone,"  she  thought  coldly. 
"Susan  is  good,  but  I  am  glad  she  has  gone."  Then, 
turning  back  to  the  fire,  she  took  up  the  piece  of 
embroidery  and  mechanically  folded  it  before  she 
laid  it  away.  While  her  hands  were  still  on  the  bag 
in  which  she  kept  it,  a  shiver  went  through  her  body, 
and  a  look  of  resolution  passed  over  her  features, 
making  them  appear  as  if  they  were  sculptured  in 
marble. 

"He  will  be  sorry  some  day,"  she  thought.  "He 
will  be  sorry  when  it  is  too  late,  and  if  I  were  there 
now  —  if  I  were  to  see  him,  it  might  all  be  prevented. 
It  might  all  be  prevented  and  we  might  be  happy 
again."  In  her  distorted  mind,  which  worked  with 
the  quickness  and  the  intensity  of  delirium,  this  idea 
assumed  presently  the  prominence  and  the  force  of 
an  hallucination.  So  powerful  did  it  become  that  it 
triumphed  over  all  the  qualities  which  had  once  con 
stituted  her  character  —  over  the  patience,  the  sweet 
ness,  the  unselfish  goodness  —  as  easily  as  it  obscured 
the  rashness  and  folly  of  the  step  which  she  planned. 
"If  I  could  see  him,  it  might  all  be  prevented,"  she 
repeated  obstinately,  as  though  some  one  had  opposed 
her;  and,  going  upstairs  to  her  bedroom,  she  packed 
her  little  handbag  and  put  on  the  travelling  dress 
which  she  had  worn  in  New  York.  Then,  very  softly, 
as  though  she  feared  to  be  stopped  by  the  servants, 
she  went  down  the  stairs  and  out  of  the  front  door; 
and,  very  softly,  carrying  her  bag,  she  passed  into  the 


THE  FUTUKE  517 

street  and  walked  hurriedly  in  the  direction  of  the 
station.  And  all  the  way  she  was  thinking,  "If  I 
can  only  see  him  again,  this  may  not  happen  and 
everything  may  be  as  it  was  before  when  he  still 
loved  me."  So  just  and  rational  did  this  idea  appear 
to  her,  that  she  found  herself  wondering  passionately 
why  she  had  not  thought  of  it  before.  It  was  so  easy 
a  way  out  of  her  wretchedness  that  it  seemed  absurd 
of  her  to  have  overlooked  it.  And  this  discovery 
filled  her  with  such  tremulous  excitement,  that  when  she 
opened  her  purse  to  buy  her  ticket,  her  hands  shook 
as  if  they  were  palsied,  and  the  porter,  who  held  her 
bag,  was  obliged  to  count  out  the  money.  The  whole 
of  life,  which  had  looked  so  dark  an  hour  ago,  had 
become  suddenly  illuminated. 

Once  in  the  train,  her  nervousness  left  her,  and 
when  an  acquaintance  joined  her  after  they  had 
started,  she  was  able  to  talk  connectedly  of  trivial 
occurrences  in  Dinwiddie.  He  was  a  fat,  apoplectic 
looking  man,  with  a  bald  head  which  shone  like  satin, 
and  a  drooping  moustache  slightly  discoloured  by 
tobacco.  His  appearance,  which  she  had  never  ob 
jected  to  before,  seemed  to  her  grotesque;  but  in  spite 
of  this,  she  could  smile  almost  naturally  at  his  jokes, 
which  she  thought  inconceivably  stupid. 

"I  suppose  you  heard  about  Cyrus  Tread  well's 
accident,"  he  said  at  last  when  she  rose  to  go  to  her 
berth.  "Got  knocked  down  by  an  automobile  as  he 
was  getting  off  a  street  car  at  the  bank.  It  isn't 
serious,  they  say,  but  he  was  pretty  well  stunned 
for  a  while." 

"No,  I  hadn't  heard,"  she  answered,  and  thought, 
"I  wonder  why  Susan  didn't  tell  me."  Then  she 


518  VIRGINIA 

said  good-night  and  disappeared  behind  the  curtains 
of  her  berth,  where  she  lay,  without  undressing,  until 
morning. 

"This  is  the  way  —  there  is  no  other  way  to  stop 
it,"  she  thought,  and  all  night  the  rumble  of  the  train 
and  the  flashing  of  the  lights  in  the  darkness  outside 
of  her  window  kept  up  a  running  accompaniment  to 
the  words.  "It  is  a  sin  —  and  there  is  no  other 
way  to  stop  it.  He  is  committing  a  sin,  and  when  I 
see  him  he  will  understand  it,  and  it  will  be  as  it  was 
before."  This  idea,  which  was  as  fixed  as  an  obsession 
of  delirium,  seemed  to  occupy  some  central  space  in 
her  brain,  leaving  room  for  a  crowd  of  lesser  thoughts 
which  came  and  went  fantastically  around  it  like  the 
motley  throng  of  a  circus.  She  thought  of  Cyrus 
Treadwell's  accident,  of  the  stupid  jokes  the  man  from 
Dinwiddie  had  told  her,  of  the  noises  of  the  train, 
which  would  not  let  one  sleep,  of  the  stations  which 
blazed  out,  here  and  there,  in  the  darkness.  But 
in  the  midst  of  this  confusion  of  images  and  impressions, 
a  clear  voice  was  repeating  somewhere  in  her  brain: 
"This  is  the  way  —  there  is  no  other  way  to  stop  it 
before  it  is  too  late." 

In  the  morning,  when  she  got  out  in  New  York, 
and  gave  the  driver  the  name  of  the  little  hotel  at 
which  she  had  stopped  on  her  first  visit,  this  glowing 
certainty  faded  like  the  excitement  of  fever  from  her 
mind,  and  she  relapsed  into  the  stricken  hopelessness 
of  the  last  six  months.  The  bleakness  of  her  spirits 
fell  like  a  cloud  on  the  brilliant  October  day,  and  the 
sunshine,  which  lay  in  golden  pools  on  the  pavements, 
appeared  to  increase  the  sense  of  universal  melancholy 
which  had  followed  so  sharply  on  the  brief  exaltation 


THE  FUTURE  510 

of  the  night.  "I  must  see  him  —  it  is  the  only  way," 
her  brain  still  repeated,  but  the  ring  of  conviction  was 
gone  from  the  words.  Her  flight  from  Dinwiddie 
showed  to  her  now  in  all  the  desperate  folly  with 
which  it  might  have  appeared  to  a  stranger.  The 
impulse  which  had  brought  her  had  ebbed  away,  and 
with  the  impulse  had  passed  also  the  confidence  and 
the  energy  of  her  resolve. 

At  the  hotel,  where  the  red  bedroom  into  which 
they  ushered  her  appeared  to  have  waited  unaltered 
for  the  second  tragedy  of  her  life,  she  bathed  and 
dressed  herself,  and  after  a  cup  of  black  coffee,  taken 
because  a  sensation  of  dizziness  had  alarmed  her  lest 
she  should  faint  in  the  street,  she  put  on  her  hat  again 
and  went  out  into  Fifth  Avenue.  She  remembered  the 
name  of  the  hotel  at  the  head  of  Oliver's  letter, 
and  she  directed  her  steps  towards  it  now  with  an 
automatic  precision  of  which  her  mind  seemed  almost 
unconscious.  All  thought  of  asking  for  him  had 
vanished,  yet  she  was  drawn  to  the  place  where  he 
was  by  a  force  which  was  more  irresistible  than  any 
choice  of  the  will.  An  instinct  stronger  than  reason 
was  guiding  her  steps. 

In  Fifth  Avenue  the  crowd  was  already  beginning 
to  stream  by  on  the  sidewalks,  and  as  she  mingled  with 
it,  she  recalled  that  other  morning  when  she  had 
moved  among  these  people  and  had  felt  that  they 
looked  at  her  kindly  because  she  was  beautiful  and 
young.  Now  the  kindness  had  given  way  to  indiffer 
ence  in  their  eyes.  They  no  longer  looked  at  her; 
and  when  a  shop  window,  which  she  was  passing, 
showed  her  a  reflection  of  herself,  she  saw  only  a  com 
monplace  middle-aged  figure,  with  a  look  of  withered 


520  VIRGINIA 

sweetness  in  the  face,  which  had  grown  suddenly 
wan.  And  the  sight  of  this  figure  fell  like  a 
weight  on  her  heart,  destroying  the  last  vestige  of 
courage. 

Before  the  door  of  the  hotel  in  which  Oliver  was 
staying,  she  stood  so  long,  with  her  vacant  gaze  fixed 
on  the  green  velvet  carpet  within  the  hall,  that  an 
attendant  in  livery  came  up  at  last  and  inquired  if 
she  wished  to  see  any  one.  Arousing  herself  with  a 
start,  she  shook  her  head  hurriedly  and  turned  back 
into  the  street,  for  when  the  crucial  moment  came 
her  decision  failed  her.  Just  as  she  had  been  unable 
to  make  a  scene  on  the  night  when  they  had  parted, 
so  now  it  was  impossible  for  her  to  descend  to  the 
vulgarity  of  thrusting  her  presence  into  his  life.  Unless 
the  frenzy  of  delirium  seized  her  again,  she  knew  that 
she  should  never  have  the  strength  to  put  the  des 
peration  of  thought  into  the  desperation  of  action. 
What  she  longed  for  was  not  to  fight,  not  to  struggle, 
but  to  fall,  like  a  wounded  bird,  to  the  earth,  and  be 
forgotten. 

At  the  crossing,  where  there  was  a  crush  of  motor 
cars  and  carriages,  she  stopped  for  a  moment  and 
thought  how  easy  it  would  be  to  die  in  the  crowded 
street  before  returning  to  Dinwiddie.  "All  I  need  do 
is  to  slip  and  fall  there,  and  in  a  second  it  would  be 
over."  But  so  many  cars  went  by  that  she  knew 
she  should  never  be  able  to  do  it,  that  much  as  she 
hated  life,  something  bound  her  to  it  which  she  lacked 
the  courage  to  break.  There  shot  through  her  mind 
the  memory  of  a  soldier  her  father  used  to  tell  about, 
who  was  always  first  on  the  field  of  battle,  but  had 
never  found  the  courage  to  charge.  "He  was  like 


THE  FUTURE  521 

me  —  for  I  might  stand  here  forever  and  yet  not  find 
the  courage  to  die." 

A  beggar  came  up  to  her  and  she  thought,  "He 
is  begging  of  me,  and  yet  I  am  more  miserable  than 
he  is."  Then,  while  she  searched  in  her  bag  for  some 
change,  it  seemed  to  her  that  the  faces  gliding  past 
her  became  suddenly  distorted  and  twisted  as  though 
the  souls  of  the  women  in  the  rapidly  moving  cars 
were  crucified  under  their  splendid  furs.  "That 
woman  in  the  sable  cloak  is  beautiful,  and  yet  she,  also, 
is  in  torture,"  she  reflected  with  an  impersonal  coldness 
and  detachment.  "I  was  beautiful,  too,  but  how  did 
it  help  me?"  And  she  saw  herself  as  she  had  been 
in  her  girlhood  with  the  glow  of  happiness,  as  of 
one  flying,  in  her  face,  and  her  heart  filled  with 
the  joyous  expectancy  of  the  miracle  which  must 
happen.  "I  am  as  old  now  as  Miss  Willy  was  then 
—  and  how  I  pitied  her!"  Tears  rushed  to  her 
eyes,  which  had  been  so  dry  a  minute  before,  while 
the  memory  of  that  lost  gaiety  of  youth  came  over 
her  in  a  wave  that  was  like  the  sweetness  of  the  honey 
suckle  blooming  in  the  rectory  garden. 

A  policeman,  observing  that  she  had  waited  there 
so  long,  held  up  the  traffic  until  she  had  crossed  the 
street,  and  after  thanking  him,  she  went  on  again 
towards  the  hotel  in  which  she  was  staying.  "He 
was  kind  about  helping  me  over,"  she  said  to  herself, 
with  an  impulse  of  gratitude;  and  this  casual  kindness 
seemed  to  her  the  one  spot  of  light  in  the  blackness 
which  surrounded  her. 

As  she  approached  the  hotel,  her  step  flagged,  and 
she  felt  suddenly  that  even  that  passive  courage 
which  was  hers  —  the  courage  of  endurance  —  had 


522  VIRGINIA 

deserted  her.  She  saw  the  dreadful  hours  that  must 
ensue  before  she  went  back  to  Dinwiddie,  the  dreadful 
days  that  would  follow  after  she  got  there,  the  dreadful 
weeks  that  would  run  on  into  the  dreadful  years. 
Silent,  grey,  and  endless,  they  stretched  ahead  of  her, 
and  through  them  all  she  saw  herself,  a  little  hopeless 
figure,  moving  towards  that  death  which  she  had  not 
had  the  courage  to  die.  The  thoughts  of  the  familiar 
streets,  of  the  familiar  faces,  of  the  house,  of  the 
furniture,  of  the  leaf-strewn  yard  in  which  her  bed 
of  dahlias  was  blooming  —  all  these  aroused  in  her 
the  sense  of  spiritual  nausea  which  she  had  felt  when 
she  went  back  to  them  after  her  parting  from  Oliver. 
Nothing  remained  except  the  long  empty  years,  for 
she  had  outlived  her  usefulness. 

At  the  door  of  the  hotel,  the  hall  porter  met  her  with 
a  cheerful  face,  and  she  turned  to  him  with  the  instinc 
tive  reliance  on  masculine  protection  which  had  driven 
her  to  the  friendly  shelter  of  the  policeman  at  the 
crossing  in  Fifth  Avenue.  In  reply  to  her  helpless 
questions,  he  looked  up  the  next  train  to  Dinwiddie, 
which  left  within  the  hour,  and  after  buying  her  ticket, 
assisted  her  smilingly  into  the  taxicab.  While  she 
sat  there,  in  the  middle  of  the  seat,  with  her  little 
black  bag  rocking  back  and  forth  as  the  cab  turned 
the  corners,  all  capacity  for  feeling,  all  possibility  of 
sensation  even,  seemed  to  have  passed  out  of  her  body, 
The  impulse  which  was  carrying  her  to  Dinwiddie  was 
the  physical  impulse  which  drives  a  wounded  animal 
back  to  die  in  its  shelter.  Even  the  flaring  adver 
tisements  of  Oliver's  play,  which  was  still  running  in 
a  Broadway  theatre,  aroused  no  pain,  hardly  any 
thought  of  him  or  of  the  past,  in  her  mind.  She 


THE  FUTURE  523 

had  ceased  to  suffer,  she  had  ceased  even  to  think; 
and  when,  a  little  later,  she  followed  the  station 
porter  down  the  long  platform,  she  was  able  to 
brush  aside  the  memory  of  her  parting  from  Oliver 
as  lightly  as  though  it  were  the  trivial  sting  of  a  wasp. 
When  she  remembered  the  agony  of  the  last  year, 
of  yesterday,  of  the  morning  through  which  she 
had  just  lived,  it  appeared  almost  ridiculous.  That 
death  which  she  had  lacked  the  courage  to  die  seemed 
creeping  over  her  soul  before  it  reached  the  outer 
shell  of  her  body. 

In  the  train,  she  was  attacked  by  a  sensation  of 
faintness,  and  remembering  that  she  had  eaten  nothing 
all  day,  she  went  into  the  dining-car,  and  sat  down  at 
one  of  the  little  tables.  When  her  luncheon  was 
brought,  she  ate  almost  ravenously  for  a  minute. 
Then  her  sudden  hunger  was  followed  by  a  disgust  for 
the  look  of  the  dishes  and  the  cinders  on  the  table 
cloth,  and  after  paying  her  bill,  for  which  she  waited 
an  intolerable  time,  she  went  back  to  her  chair  in 
the  next  coach,  and  watched,  with  unseeing  eyes,  the 
swiftly  moving  landscape,  which  rushed  by  in  all  the 
brilliant  pageantry  of  October.  Several  seats  ahead  of 
her,  two  men  were  discussing  politics,  and  one  of  them, 
who  wore  a  clerical  waistcoat,  raised  his  voice  suddenly 
so  high  that  his  words  penetrated  the  wall  of  blankness 
which  surrounded  her  thoughts,  "I  tell  you  it  is  the 
greatest  menace  to  our  civilization!"  and  then,  as  he 
controlled  his  excitement,  his  speech  dropped  quickly 
into  indistinctness. 

"How  absurd  of  him  to  get  so  angry  about  it," 
thought  Virginia  with  surprise,  "as  if  a  civilization 
could  make  any  difference  to  anybody  on  earth/' 


524  VIRGINIA 

And  she  watched  the  clergyman  for  a  minute,  as  if 
fascinated  by  the  display  of  his  earnestness.  "What 
on  earth  can  it  matter  to  him?"  she  wondered  mildly, 
"and  yet  to  look  at  him  one  would  think  that  his 
heart  was  bound  up  in  the  question."  But  in  a  little 
while  she  turned  away  from  him  again,  and  lying 
back  in  her  chair,  stared  across  the  smooth  plains  to 
the  pale  golden  edge  of  the  distant  horizon.  Through 
the  long  day  she  sat,  without  moving,  without  taking 
her  eyes  from  the  landscape,  while  the  sunlight  faded 
slowly  away  from  the  fields  and  the  afterglow  flushed 
and  waned,  and  the  stars  shone  out,  one  by  one, 
through  the  silver  web  of  the  twilight.  Once,  when 
the  porter  had  offered  her  a  pillow,  she  had  looked 
round  to  thank  him;  once  when  a  child,  toddling  along 
the  aisle,  had  fallen  at  her  feet,  she  had  bent  over  to 
lift  it,  but  beyond  this,  she  had  stirred  only  to  hand 
her  ticket  to  the  conductor  when  he  aroused  her  by 
touching  her  arm.  Where  the  sunset  and  the  after 
glow  had  been,  she  saw  at  last  only  the  lights  of  the 
train  reflected  in  the  smeared  glass  of  the  window,  but  so 
unconscious  was  she  of  any  change  in  that  utter  vacancy 
at  which  she  looked,  that  she  could  not  have  told 
whether  it  was  an  hour  or  a  day  after  leaving  New 
York  that  she  came  back  to  Dinwiddie.  Even  then 
she  would  still  have  sat  there,  speechless,  inert,  un 
seeing,  had  not  the  porter  taken  her  bag  from  the 
rack  over  her  head  and  accompanied  her  from  the 
glare  of  the  train  out  into  the  dimness  of  the  town, 
where  the  crumbling  "hacks"  hitched  to  the  decrepit 
horses  still  waited.  Here  her  bag  was  passed  over 
to  a  driver,  whom  she  vaguely  remembered,  and  a 
few  minutes  later  she  rolled,  in  one  of  the  ancient 


THE  FUTURE  525 

vehicles,  under  the  pale  lights  of  the  street  which  led 
to  her  home.  In  the  drug  store  at  the  corner  she 
saw  Miss  Priscilla's  maid  buying  medicines,  and  she 
wondered  indifferently  if  the  teacher  had  grown  sud 
denly  worse.  Then,  as  she  passed  John  Henry's 
house,  she  recognized  his  large  shadow  as  it  moved 
across  the  white  shade  at  the  window  of  the  drawing- 
room.  "Susan  was  coming  to  spend  last  night  with 
me,"  she  said  aloud,  and  for  the  first  and  last  time 
in  her  life,  an  ironic  smile  quivered  upon  her  lips. 

With  a  last  jolt  the  carriage  drew  up  at  the  sidewalk 
before  her  home;  the  driver  dismounted,  grinning, 
from  his  box;  and  in  the  lighted  doorway,  she  saw  the 
figure  of  her  maid,  in  trim  cap  and  apron,  waiting  to 
welcome  her.  Not  a  petal  had  fallen  from  the  bed  of 
crimson  dahlias  beside  the  steps;  not  a  leaf  had  changed 
on  the  young  maple  tree,  which  rose  in  a  spire  of 
flame  toward  the  stars.  Inside,  she  knew,  there  would 
be  the  bright  fire,  the  cheerful  supper  table,  the  soft 
bed  turned  down  —  and  the  future. 

On  the  porch  she  stopped  and  looked  back  into  the 
street  as  she  might  have  looked  back  at  the  door  of 
a  prison.  The  negro  driver,  having  placed  her  bag  in 
the  hall,  stood  waiting  expectantly,  with  his  hat  in  his 
hand,  and  his  shining  black  eyes  on  her  face;  and  opening 
her  purse,  she  paid  him,  before  walking  past  the  maid 
over  the  threshold.  Ahead  of  her  stretched  the  stair 
case  which  she  would  go  up  and  down  for  the  rest  of 
her  life.  On  the  right,  she  could  look  into  the  open 
door  of  the  dining-room,  and  opposite  to  it,  she  knew 
that  the  lamp  was  lit  and  the  fire  burning  in  Oliver's 
study.  Then,  while  a  wave  of  despair,  like  a  mortal 
sickness,  swept  over  her,  her  eyes  fell  on  an  envelope 


526  VIRGINIA 

which  lay  on  the  little  silver  card-tray  on  the  hall 
table,  and  as  she  tore  it  open,  she  saw  that  it  contained 
but  a  single  line: 

"Dearest  mother,  I  am  coming  home  to  you, 

"HARRY." 


THE  END 


THE   COUNTRY  LIFE   PRESS 
GARDEN   CITY,   N.  Y. 


